[^\w] is more canonically written as \W. Note that that is a capital W. Also perhaps of note is that \w is equivilent to [a-zA-Z0-9_] -- that is, alphanumeric or the underscore; this means that [^\w] or \W won't catch numbers, which the poster specifically included in their post. Thus, you'd be better off using [^a-zA-Z] As always, it's easier to specify what you don't want in a large set, then what you do want.

perl -pe '"I lo*`+$^X$\"$]!$/"=~m%(.*)%s;$_=$1;y^`+*^e v^#$&V"+@( NO CARRIER'