Shhh! Nobody tell them about “inside out.”
It could be to do with something called “ablaut reduplication”. Very basically English has a - kind of - untaught sound order that native speakers inherently apply to the language. Wikipedia will have an article to explain it better. Specifically the vowel order I-A-O. A great example is the phrase “Bish bash bosh” which is getting coverage recently. (One notable exception is “shit, shower, shave” but that is probably down to the chronology of the actions.)
How else would one interpret it?
It’s not really that I interpret it in another way, but I never really thought about the structure of the word 😅
Go further. For example, people say ‘gypped’ without knowing it’s a pejorative reference to the word ‘Gypsy’ which is itself a pejorative of the Romani.
My favorite recently is sophist from the pejorative Platonic definition. It really puts words like sophisticated in a different etymological light and subtle contextual meaning.
I remember learning this about 20ish years ago and telling my then-sister in law about it when I explained why I wasn’t going to use it anymore. I got told I had a stick up my ass, and this was by a marginalized (gay, immigrant) woman. (Somewhat unrelated note - very grateful she’s a former relation.)
So glad people have been learning and I’ve been hearing “gypped” less and less in recent years.
I think the pronunciation, specifically the blending of the end of “upside” and beginning of “down”, turns it into one of those compound words that your brain interprets as an independent word, rather than a combination of its composite parts.
Unused to wonder if the radio announcers that are always reciting the station call letters found that the letters stopped sounding like individual sounds, and the whole recitation became a sort of “word” for them. Like “You’re listening to 102.9FM WBLM!” Did it stop being “double-you bee ell emm,” and turn into more of a mashup of “dubbleyabeeyelmm”?
True, the difference is pretty subtle, especially to a listener, but I wonder strange things sometimes…
Now explain why some people are “down for things” while others are “up for it”
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/bTqU4bKycFo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Wait until you find out “bottoms up” isn’t about a group of people taking an elevator to get mimosas
Brave of you to post this
