[kpil]

And it's most likely a carry over from when typewriters where in use, where you go back and add underscores under the characters by typing over them. Underscores where of course the italics of a typewriter font, unless you had a really fancy typewriter.

On a _terminal_ you can't - or couldn't compose characters, so you add a hint in the front and the end of the word.

Just deal with it.

It's like the characters added for simulated deletion, that jokingly tell other suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H people what you really think. On a suitably incompatible terminal (or vastly overrated editor), this was actually what it looked like when trying to delete text by pressing backspace or some obscure control-character.

Ahh, and simulated hangup noise that you get when you are criticising Hacker New, although that have never happ485734095-.sdf834-...####+3+323803040830