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SheltieBites Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Backup

"The police officer radioed for backups."
"The police officer radioed for backup."
"The police officer radioed for a backup."

Only some are correct?
  

Top answer

" is what you would hear. There is nothing wrong - from a purely theoretical grammatical point of view - with the other two, but the second sentence is what you would hear.

— Anonymous

  • " is what you would hear.
  • There is nothing wrong - from a purely theoretical grammatical point of view - with the other two, but the second sentence is what you would hear.
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3 Answers
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"The police officer radioed for backup." is what you would hear. There is nothing wrong - from a purely theoretical grammatical point of view - with the other two, but the second sentence is what you would hear.
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Does the uncountable "backup" always mean "support/help" and the countable "backup" always mean the countable people/things that provide such "support/help"?
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The word "backup" used in this situation is US police jargon. When a policeman radios this in, the dispatcher knows exactly what to send, according to the radio code used: it might be one officer or two or three or a whole SWAT team. Saying "send a backup" would confuse the dispatcher: suppose the code use calls for sending three officers, but is the officer saying send only one officer instea
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