To me precise about ctrl-c being default of the terminal meant in this context: it's the default of the Linux kernel tty driver. Which is a different thing from

To me precise about ctrl-c being default of the terminal meant in this context: it's the default of the Linux kernel tty driver. Which is a different thing from the terminal emulation program. So stty manipulates the kernel tty settings with system calls without involvement of the terminal emulation program like xterm or gnome-terminal. And what interprets the ^C / ^G in this case is also the kernel.