^W denotes Ctrl-W, the shortcut to delete the previous word for example originally in Berkley (thanks Wikipedia!) Unix-style terminals (and ^H denotes the contr

^W denotes Ctrl-W, the shortcut to delete the previous word for example originally in Berkley (thanks Wikipedia!) Unix-style terminals (and ^H denotes the control code for backspace, deleting the previous letter). The Jargon File's example shows how these are used for humorous effect: '"Be nice to this fool^H^H^H^Hgentleman, he's visiting from corporate HQ." reads roughly as “Be nice to this fool, er, gentleman...”, with irony emphasized.' (http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/writing-style.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/writing-style.html)