I see the culprit has renamed it 1x4 HDMI switcher. It was 4x1 HDMI switcher.

If it's semantics, it's pretty major semantics. Someone who doesn't know whether input or output is stated first is likely to make some major screwups.

If they happen to uncoil a directional HDMI cable onto the floor near the display instead of near the rack, then they run it "to the rack," they're likely to run it with the arrow pointing at the Blu-ray. I mean, they ran it from the display to the source, so the arrow goes in the direction they ran it, right? Given that the parts of the task are just one cable, one input, one output, and a path for the cable, this is about the biggest error you could make. It's semantics and it'll screw you. "Semantics" does not mean "it's minor" or "it won't cost you a day" or even "it won't cost you thousands of dollars."

Every once in a while I'll run across an installer who talks about running wires from speakers to amplifiers, and all I can think is that when they have a problem and have to troubleshoot a load problem, a short, a backwards VC, they will have a hard time thinking clearly. If you run wires from the speaker to the amp, don't the input wires go on the speaker side of the VC?

Besides, you're asking us to judge whether the writer is more likely to know:
*whether it's a switcher or a splitter, versus
*whether the first number is the inputs or the outputs.
If a person is going to be wrong as to which is which, why would you expect the simpler order of naming to be wrong? I'd expect the more complex "is it a switch or a DA" to be wrong.

Frankly, though, it's embarrassing that none of us asked right away how a 4x1 could possibly be a switch!