Well, word has it that Elrond kept a pencil sharpener on his bedside table...
But seriously folks: the pointed ear thing goes back to the Greeks, who portrayed the half-goat demi-god Pan as having pointed ears.
Shakespeare picked up on this and used the reference of pointed ears on elves to denote that they were of another, pre-Christian - and well, lets face it - souless race of beings. (There may have been earlier references, but Shakespeare made it popular.) 17th Century artists and illustrators picked up on this and ran with it.
And so today, pixies, elves, leprauchans, demons, vampires, and other beings "who ain't like us", are portrayed with pointy ears.
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