Silly newbie question - Carrot character (^)

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <mailman.697.1289067607.2218.python-list at python.org>, Dennis Lee 
Bieber wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Nov 2010 10:22:47 -0400, Philip Semanchuk
> <philip at semanchuk.com> declaimed the following in
> gmane.comp.python.general:
>  
>> Some people might think the language ref> is a fine place to direct
>> newcomers to Python. I don't. It's not awful, but it's dense and
>> unfriendly for those just starting out.
>>
> Have you ever looked at the reference manual for Ada?

Or even worse, the annotated reference. I thought annotations were supposed 
to clarify things; in this case they seemed to have the opposite effect...