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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

I think Hacker news removes "filler" words from headlines, which is why it is so weirdly phrased. The original headline is different.

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HN doesn’t do it but it does have a character limit: go to the submission form and paste the original title (“Did Lead Limit Brain and Language Development in Neanderthals and Other Extinct Hominids?”) and you’ll see too long.

People lazily remove words until it fits instead of reworking the whole thing sometimes.

HN does actually have automatic text filters to remove "extraneous" words from titles, even when they do fit. People have complained that the filters are too naive and sometimes destroy necessary context but for whatever reason the mods consider it necessary.

Oh, TIL. I guess in this case it couldn’t have been since you can’t submit if too long but I was unaware.

Could be one or the other, or both, but the filter's definitely there.

Fair warning HN also automatically replaces submitted links with canonical links despite most canoncial links pointing to the original domain for SEO purposes. There is no warning or feedback for any of this, you're just expected to notice and edit your post after the fact.

You can edit the title after submission

I personally would have tried:

    Did lead limit extinct hominid and Neanderthal brain development and language?

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