Another way to write cancels is "~", and specials sometimes (rarely) are referred by short names, like:
114~airthrow
This is mostly a leftover from MK9 times, when this way was more popular, but some stubborn geezers like me still use it.
I guess initially the reason MK folks used "~" instead of traditional "xx" was because it was supposed to highlight unusual cancel system of the game (you must "buffer" new move during previous move startup as opposed to "cancelling" its recovery with valid input), so they decided to go with separate symbol. Or maybe someone just wanted to be fancy, I dunno.
If you have trouble understanding any of that babble I've just wrote, feel free to ask - just in case you're new to FG terms as well
