It has nothing to with where the 'hinge' is. '/' is just 'slash'; it's the only one that existed before computers. '\' was invented so you could write the mathe

It has nothing to with where the 'hinge' is. '/' is just 'slash'; it's the only one that existed before computers. '\' was invented so you could write the mathematical symbols for 'and' and 'or' as /\ and \/. Since it is a backwards version of the slash, it was named 'backslash,' and 'forward slash' later came about in analogy with 'backslash.'