“Drop the ‘how.’ It’s cleaner.”

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.