Literature's Most Meaningful Squiggle

This funny little squiggle has an interesting history. In Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, it’s used by a usually eloquent, long-winded character to convey an idea that he couldn’t capture in words. I think he was talking about the limitations of being married, something like that – anyhow, in his wordlessness this character takes his walking stick and makes a gesture in the air with its tip, which is the motion the squiggle describes. The person he’s speaking/gesturing to immediately understands what he means, better than if the explainer had made the most elegant verbal explanation.

This squiggle was important to Sterne; he’d even personally paid to have the printing press piece carved to his specifications. I've seen a few different versions, and I'm not sure what the original looked like. I included the picture of this particular version just because it's the one I've grown used to, since it's my phone wallpaper 🤓

There are many ways to read it, but I see it as a counter-argument to Wittgenstein’s assertion that anything that can’t be described by language doesn’t exist (or at least can't be understood). To me, this little serpentine flourish is a sometimes humbling, sometimes consoling reminder that words aren’t everything. Some things are outside language. Sometimes a gesture says more than a speech.