H-caret (was: McGuffey Readers in Tatari Faran)

Sally Caves wrote at 2005-03-12 15:32:30 (-0500)
 > ----- Original Message -----
 > From: "David J. Peterson" <dedalvs@...>
 >
 >
 > > A random bit from one of Teoh's other messages:
 > > <<
 > > (Acquired Immune Defic^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I mean,
 > > Attention Deficit Disorder)
 > > >>
 > >
 > > Is anyone else getting these ^H things?  They seem to occur at
 > > random in random people's messages.  It's as if there was a
 > > sensor and they really didn't want me to see the "it" in
 > > "Deficit".
 >
 > :) It's a joke, you sill^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HDavid! ;) Teoh started it.
 > Remember the old control H in I think it was UNIX?  The number of
 > ^Hs equal the number of characters he's backed up over to "erase"
 > the original wording.  "Attention Deficit" rather than "Immune
 > Deficiency."  After laughing uproariously, I had to copy him, of
 > course.  :) Sorry, it was funnier unexplained!
 >
 > Sara^H^Hlly

Yes... this actually used to happen, of course.

http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/ctrlh.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=386870

(There are probably more informative sources online, but Google won't
search for carets)

Given his age (from the Lunatic Survey), David's unlikely to have
experienced this firsthand, and there's no reason he should be
familiar with this bit of history.  But it's now a widely understood
online convention for saying "First I typed this, then I thought
better of it and typed the following".  (Usually as a deliberate joke,
although in this case perhaps Teoh actually did type the expansion of
AIDS when he meant ADD and found the error humourous enough to share.)
So it's worth knowing, even if it doesn't salvage this particular
joke.

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