All thumbs

An expression dating from the 16th century for clumsiness or lack of manual dexterity as if one had all thumbs and no fingers. Sometimes the expression is all fingers and thumbs, which is not very clever because how else would one describe a normal pair of hands? It is ironic that the thumb should be singled out for an expression of clumsiness because the transverse human thumb gives homo sapiens its superior manual dexterity over the five fingers of the apes. Just try holding anything as if you had five fingers.