Comment by Akronymus

1 month ago

A bit off-topic: I occasionally see that triple ^H on HN posts: what does that actually indicate?

Ctrl-H is the rubout/backspace command on old terminals. So if I say it's nuts^H^H^H^Hunwise to ignore UNIX history, I've erased the first word and replaced it with the second.

In the old hardware terminals, and current terminal emulators, ^H (or CTRL+h) is "Backspace signal". It has the effect of pressing backspace.

So, ^H^H^H means "delete three characters, excluding '^H's". Like the person typing the comment changes their mind and deletes the characters (or the word) before writing else.

It's an stylized way of euphemism. i.e.: Actually I want to say this, but I substitute it for that.