The title of the post is actually:

> How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth

But the HN link is

> Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth

Is this one of those cases where HN automatically changes the submission name? Because removing the `how` really changes the meaning here.

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yreg a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, leading How in title is always removed and often leads to worse titles.

I don't like these magical (unexpected) solutions.

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cubefox a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes. There is some old regex (probably written 20 years ago) which automatically tries to improve the titles. One of the more silly rules is to remove "how" from the beginning.

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hsuduebc2 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I would guess that author just shortened the title which was too long for hn?

	▲	phyzome a day ago \| parent [-]
		No, HN has a braindead feature that autostrips certain words from titles.