The Turkish password word may be the same used for signature? I suspect so, because in Greek we have the Greek word for signature but also a Turkish loan word τζίφρα (djifra).

Nice! Imagine the second meaning going back to Arabic and now it's a full loop! It can even override the original meaning given enough time and popularity (not especially for "zero", but possibly for another full-loop word).

Swedish: "Siffra"

It gives it a different implication. As I read it, an article titled "Lewis Carroll Computed Determinates" has three possible subjects:

1. Literally, Carroll would do matrix math. I know, like many on HN, that he was a mathematician. So this would be a dull and therefore unlikely subject.

2. Carroll invented determinates. This doesn't really fit the timeline of math history, so I doubt it.

3. Carroll computed determinates, and this was surprising. Maybe because we thought he was a bad mathematician, or the method had recently been invented and we don't know how he learned of it. This is slightly plausible.

4. (The actual subject). Carroll invented a method for computing determinates. A mathematician inventing a math technique makes sense, but the title doesn't. It'd be like saying "Newton and Leibnitz Used Calculus." Really burying the lede.

Of course, this could've been avoided had the article not gone with a click-bait style title. A clearer one might've been "Lewis Carroll's Method for Calculating Determinates Is Probably How You First Learned to Do It." It's long, but I'm not a pithy writer. I'm sure somebody could do better.