Leopard Terminal (and iTerm) Ignores Control Key Combos

Question

I am very used to using Ctrl + A, Ctrl + E, Ctrl + L, etc. as shortcuts to operations (beginning of line, e

Answer 1

Check for vi mode (set -o) or a vi editing-mode or keymap (bind -v). The default mode is emacs, but it might be set to vi e.g. in ~/.bashrc (with set -o vi) or ~/.inputrc.