Why use Myvar*Myvar instead of Myvar^2 ?

I've often seen people who use Myvar*Myvar instead of Myvar^2, as if using Myvar*Myvar is someone optimizing the program, when all it's really doing it making the code longer and more cumbersome and therefore more likely to contain errors that are harder to spot. Also the vastest code is usually the shortest code. So I can't see what the advantage is to use Myvar*Myvar instead of Myvar^2. If anyone knows the advantage of using Myvar*Myvar, please let me know.