And how do you propose I do that? There are [various accounts](https://superuser.com/questions/301029/problem-with-ctrl-left-right-bindings-in-oh-my-zsh) for correct xterm values — [somebody here says](http://zshwiki.org/home/zle/bindkeys) their xterm works with `;5D`, my xterm works with `\e[1;5D` if I let zsh parse my .zshrc and with `;5D` if I run `zsh --no-rcs`.... I don't think these can be reliably inferred from `$TERM`, I though we were trusting Debian with this...

And what do you mean by inconsistent? Yes, it has several possible values, all of which apply, obviously.