You got an SVG path like M20,20 30,20 30,30 20,30 Z, which is a 10x10 square whose top left corner is positioned at 20,20.
You would like that square's top left corner to be positioned at 0,0.
See here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/symbols#add_to_marker
Google maps API allows to specify a path as a marker. This allows to do cool stuff like theming of the marker, which is the reason I needed to do this whole thing.
The challenge here is that the exact location of the marker is mapped to the SVG path's 0,0. So if you have an SVG of a custom pin, like the one attached to this gist, you have to make sure that the pointy part of the pin is located at 0,0.
And that's what this function does.