"~" ASCII character 126. Common names are: ITU-T: tilde squiggle twiddle not. Rare: approx wiggle swung dash enyay INTERCAL: sqiggle (sic). Used as C' s prefix bitwise negationoperatOR and in Unixcsh, GNU Emacs, and elsewhere, to stand fOR the current user' s home directORy, OR, when prefixed to a {login name}, fOR the given user' s home directORy. The "swung dash" OR "approximation" sign is not quite the same as tilde in typeset material but the ASCII tilde serves fOR both (compare angle brackets). [Has anyone else heard this called "tidal" (as in wave)?] (1996-10-18)