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Steve44 • today at 6:30 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I think this may be a case of language evolving/devolving and quite possibly an Americanism.

I'm British and to me backup means having a reserve or spare ready to use. You have a battery backup on your servers to step in when there is a mains problem, a photographer will have a backup camera, you backup you files regularly etc.

We would call this a reversing camera, for when you reverse your car using the Reverse gear. You can back into a parking space, or even just back up a little bit into a better spot.

One thing I'm seeing which irritates me is people are starting to call backing singers backup singers. They are not a backup the the lead singer, that would be an understudy, they are supporting like the backing on picture.


Replies

justin66 • today at 7:51 PM

> One thing I'm seeing which irritates me is people are starting to call backing singers backup singers.

Rolling Stone magazine has been using the phrase "backup singer" for a genuinely long time.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dylan-gets-gos...

mogrinz • today at 6:42 PM

Fwiw, I used the same phrasing in my title as the product I bought on Amazon. Most of these are made (and packaged) in China: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=backup+camera A search for “reverse camera” only returns “backup camera”s