# Talk:Caret

WikiProject Typography (Rated Start-class, Low-importance)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Typography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Typography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Start  This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Low  This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

## Hat

Does anyone really call it a "hat"? I've never heard it referred to it that way before 24.254.155.68 (talk) 00:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

TeX does: \hat creates a circumflex accent above the subsequent symbol.  // stpasha »  22:27, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

In unit vector notation in linear algebra an i with a caret is called "i-hat." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.162.222.142 (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

## Caret Browsing

What about the expression "caret browsing" used for instance to describe in Firefox the functionality triggered by F7 function key ? Ptyxs (talk) 08:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

## Pronouced?

Pronounciation ~ carrot? 86.128.51.192 20:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

## Internet use

What about its use on internet forums, where it can be used to indicate the post is a reply to a previous post, usually determined by the number of carets, e.g. "^^^I Agree,but..." means the poster agrees with what was posted three posts back, not counting the new post. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.83.36.205 (talkcontribs)

Oh so that's what the number of ^ means. I've always used any number of ^. Didn't know that meant how many posts back to look at. - M0rphzone (talk) 01:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Isn't > more common?
I would say that it is very commonly used on internet forums to denote who you're replying to, without actually quoting them. I don't see > very much Hollerama 11:08, 19 September 2006 (PST)
I'd say it also means something like woot or: "I strongly agree with this opinion". Virtually every second youtube comment uses ^^. May be it is some form of leet or of emoticon?--Soylentyellow 20:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
It's not a leet or emoticon if used by itself. (^-^) is one of the ways it can be used in emoticons though. - M0rphzone (talk) 01:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I've always thought of "^^" or simply "^" as "I agree with the above comment" since it looks a bit like an up arrow 24.254.155.68 (talk) 00:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
^.^ ^_^ ^-^ ^o^ ^w^ ^^ *^.^* *^_^* Are all types of Emoticon i suppose, Normally to show a Cute smile, or I'm happy to see you Face, Commonly used in Forums, Blogs, Messenger Programs, E-mails Etc. Why isn't that added into there? The Online use for '^' ? NekoKiyo (talk) 13:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

## Math use

What about its mathematical use for exponents?

Isn't this used as a "to the power of" kinda thing? It is used, and superscript notation is obsolete! PiotrGrochowski000 (talk) 07:05, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is used where superscript is not available, or sometimes where computer-parsing of expressions is required. It is not used for displayed formulas when formatting is available. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:13, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

## carat

I consider the claim

sometimes spelled carat


dubious.

To my knowledge, this is a misspelling, not an alternate spelling. 88.77.152.227 (talk) 02:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

## Not only squares

The use of ^2 for squaring is only a special case of the more general x^y notation for the y-th power of x. Also, ^ is sometimes used for other mathematical or logical operators, such as xor. 88.238.107.74 (talk) 05:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

## About its math notation use.

Since people have asked about its use to donate mathematic exponents, it's used to donate those when superscript can't be feasibly used (i.e. on low-tech internet forums). CrashGordon94 (talk) 09:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC) NOT! Superscripts are obsolete! Caret is used now! PiotrGrochowski000 (talk) 07:07, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

## The use of the caret for exponentiation can be traced back to ALGOL 60?

According to the ALGOL 60 page, was actually used for the AND operator (and for OR), which looks closer to the caret than the upward-pointing arrow, as the text describes it: “[ALGOL 60] which expressed the exponentiation operator as an upward-pointing arrow, intended to evoke the superscript notation common in mathematics”. This whole sentence thus seems a bit incoherent. DidierLoiseau (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

## Meaning Text Cursor

There should be something here about the fact that the flashing marker in most text editors is also referred to as the caret. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.179.133 (talk) 13:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

That's mentioned at Caret (disambiguation) and has its own article. I'm not really sure it's worth mentioning here because the hatnote is already bloated enough and can't be expected to duplicate the whole disambiguation page. Not to mention that it's not about the '^' character itself. Opencooper (talk) 18:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Caret. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

You may set the |checked=, on this template, to true or failed to let other editors know you reviewed the change. If you find any errors, please use the tools below to fix them or call an editor by setting |needhelp= to your help request.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

If you are unable to use these tools, you may set |needhelp=<your help request> on this template to request help from an experienced user. Please include details about your problem, to help other editors.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot 04:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)