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

[Richard Stallman]

    You could do this, which is essentially the definition of
    `backward-kill-word' with "delete" substituted for "kill":

     (delete-region (point) (progn (forward-word (- arg)) (point)))

That is the recommended way to do it.  I think this is cleaner than
using a kill command and faking it out so it won't kill.