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Comment by jyriand | Hacker News Reader

What's up with these titles nowadays? I don't know if it's because the title is (possibly) missing a semicolon before 'A Young Woman Followed Two Hackers', or Lies to Her Death -- but I can't make a sense out of it. Is somebody dead because they lied? (I know I should have read the article, but this title!!)

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The title makes perfect sense. A young woman died. She died because two hackers lied, and she followed those lies. This is the story of how it happened.

So this is how a young woman followed the lies for two hackers, and died.

This is:

"How A Young Woman Followed Two Hackers' Lies To Her Death"

The apostrophe after "hackers" shows that the lies belonged to the hackers. The phrase "Two Hackers' Lies" is a noun phrase, it's a thing, it's the collection of lies told by two hackers.

Does that help?

Is the fact that they're hackers or lied relevant to her death? Boyfriends kill their girlfriends with unfortunate regularity, no hacking or lying involved.

I was expecting a story where two guys tricked a woman into making her own diet pills from castor beans or something. Which I imagine was the point of the title. I may not have clicked on "A boyfriend and his buddy killed his girlfriend."

I'm not assessing whether the title is an accurate reflection of the content, I'm pointing out that the title is grammatically correct as it stands. There is certainly a story that accurately fits the title, although it's not clear that this story is the one ...

Yes, I agree that “hacker” can be an overused word in the pursuit of clickbait, but it definitely applies here. She met her boyfriend and accused killer because he successfully spoofed a verified Instagram account. They fled to the Philippines because he and his convicted hacker friend had gotten involved in crypto, including fashioning an influencer persona for himself, and somehow got targeted by criminals. The convicted hacker even managed to fool the authorities and escape the U.S. with a faked identity.

I think "following lies" is the thing that trips people up.

You can't "follow lies" literally -- I'm not sure what the figure of speech is here though. Metonymy?

You can follow instructions, and if someone is saying something and you act in a way that is modified by what they've said, then you are, in a very real sense, following what they've said. More, act A can occur before act B, so B is said to follow A.

So when someone tells lies, and you act on the (false) information therein, then I think it's reasonable to say that you are following the lies.

The other answers point out that the apostrophe is in the correct place. However, no one has yet to point out that you appear to have mistaken the apostrophe for a closing single quote. I assume that is the case, since you added an opening single quote in your comment that wasn't in the title.

Thank you for pointing out the meaning of the title. I see it know. Had to read it 10 times if not more. I think the thing that tripped me of is the capital A(or the fact that I'm not native English speaker). I read the title like this: How "A Young Woman Followed Two Hackers" Lies to Her Death. So I understood it as if a young woman wrote an fictional(basically lying) article about how she followed two hackers.

The title is grammatically correct, it also makes sense, and it also conveys the message it was intended to convey.

The lies belong to the hackers

A young woman followed those lies until she was no longer alive

This would be the worst place for a semicolon

There are multiple hackers and multiple lies, so the apostrophe goes after the "s". One hacker's lies; two hackers' lies.

There's nothing wrong or confusing about the title...???

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