Interestingly, there's a current post on the front page with "How" at the start of the title.

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48018715 "How do I inform Windows that I’m writing a binary file?"

I wonder if it ending in a '?' has anything to do with it?

edit: Upon review, at the time of posting it was actually on the 2nd page

not sure about that specific case or if '?' has anything to do with it, but there is a short editing window where the submitter can re-add the "how" or whatever back in

I’ve been hit by this when posting links. If you edit the post, you can re-add the stripped word and it will stay. “Why” is another that is often stripped.