You can use “change inner word” by typing “ciw” to delete a word your cursor is on.
The “inner” and “a” commands are great in Vim, also try “ci{” inside a {} block, or “ca{” if you also wish to remove the {} characters too. To translate these commands to English to remember them better, try: “change inner { block” and “change a { block”.
Documentation at http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/motion.html#text-objects