RE: kill-ring-max or other var to convert killing to deleting?

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

       But wouldn't it be handy, generally, to be able to just 
       convert an existing `kill-*' function to a `delete-*' function?
       That is, bind some flag to indicate that the deleted text is
       not to be added to the kill ring:
    
        (let ((kill-p nil)) (backward-kill-word arg))
    
    What about this:
    
    (defun backward-delete-word (arg)
      (interactive "p")
      (let (kill-ring kill-ring-yank-pointer)
        (backward-kill-word arg)))

Wunderbar! Thank you. I should have thought of that.