Can't remove unwanted icon from iPad

That's the Hover Text icon. Go to Settings ➜ Accessibility ➜ Hover Text and turn it off.

marsanm wrote:

Thanks for the tip

it worked perfectly and I did not remember turning it on.

You likely didn't turn it on. For some odd reason, this setting is being enabled for some users without user-intervention, possibly after an iOS update (26.x?) and/or possibly using an inadvertent key press on the screen. It's definitely not the first time this has happened as there have been numerous other posts recently with the same issue.

marsanm wrote:

Thanks for the tip

it worked perfectly and I did not remember turning it on.

You probably didn't. Seems it's somehow getting enabled on updates for some unexplained reason. There are several reports about this.