how to un-highlight vim searches

The problem is basically this. If you have hlsearch set, then after you've searched for an expression, it remains highlighted. (I believe this is the default behavior in gvim. In vim on the console, I've seen the opposite.)

I got into the habit of turning off the highlight by searching for a bogus expression like

   /asdfasdasdf

Turns out you can do this:

   :nohlsearch

to turn of the highlighting.

If you do:

   :set nohlsearch

then it turns off highlighting of searches compeltely. :)