I am reading Emacs Lisp Reference and can not understand the following paragraph: For historical reasons, Emacs treats the character as the control equivalent of `?': ?\^? => 127 ?\C-? => 127 As a result, it is currently not possible to represent the character `Control-?', which is a meaningful input character under X, using `\C-'. It is not easy to change this, as various Lisp files refer to in this way. What I understand is : ?\^? = now we can not represent `Control-?' with `?\ " syntax. Is it right? What does "which is a meaningful input character under X, using `\C-'. " mean ? Thanks