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  • Actually, I think the intention of the C-h here is to backspace, not delete, so the W is printed on top of the _ character, leading to an underlined W. It is only on input that C-h is interpreted as “delete backwards”. Commented May 4, 2016 at 15:17
  • @Harald: that seems credible (the "W" is supposed to be a mathematical symbol in the quote). But I'm not aware of "how to see the underlined W"... I don't see it in a terminal, e.g. Commented May 4, 2016 at 15:23
  • ... I've definitely seen this ^H in fortunes before. I admit, this is something of a frivolous question, but I thought I might learn something useful by asking it... Commented May 4, 2016 at 15:25
  • If you pipe the output into less, you'll see the underlined W. Of course, this emulates a printer that would print the _ on the paper, then backspace over it, and print a W in the same spot. Commented May 4, 2016 at 15:29
  • nice! So can one coerce shell-command-to-string into imitating the behavior of the terminal window (which I guess mus treat the backspace as "delete backwards"? Commented May 4, 2016 at 15:34