Hmm well, the Unix shell seems to follow a plumbing metaphor.

You could direct, or redirect the flow to /dev/null. Or pipe to /dev/null. Or redirect the pipe to /dev/null?

So from a metaphor point of view either would fit.

Although of course you don't use the pipe construct to direct to a file. Which would suggest piping is wrong?

And then on the third hand, we all know what it means so what's the problem.

So I would say theres war, famine and injustice in the world. Don't worry about posix shell semantics. :)