The following podcast contains explicit language.

From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter, and we're going to start out this time with a recording of me and

my youngest daughter and over the holidays you catch up on things like teaching your

children to read.

And so here I am with Vanessa and we're reading the grand old hop on pop and listen to

something that happens somewhere in about the middle.

All right, hop on pop here, where are we?

Okay, Mr. Brown.

Read this slowly.

Read the brown.

And look at the picture.

Mr. Brown upside down.

Okay, so we're going to go slowly.

So look at this, read this word.

Upside down.

Why are they separate?

You mean the two words upside and down?

Because really it's just a word, it's upside down.

That's really all it is.

But you write it upside down because people used to say, well, there he is with his upside

down.

...