You can change the default keybindings for OS X text editing with the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file. Make a new text file at ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict
, with these contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>^\UF702<<key>^</key>
<string>moveWordLeft:</string>
<key>^\UF703<<key>^</key>
<string>moveWordRight:</string>
</dict>
</plist>
Restart or log out and in, and controlleft and controlright should do what you're looking for. This will work in most OS X apps, but there are some (typically third party text editors) that use their own bindings, which will need to be switched on a case-by-case basis.