It is said that the average English speaker has an active vocabulary of around 20,000 words and a passive vocabulary of around 40,000 words. The active vocabulary consists of words a person uses in everyday speech or writing; the passive vocabulary consists of words a speaker or writer recognizes when seen in context.
Into this chaotic and cluttered world shuffles the ancient phrase “Topsy-turvy”. This unkempt fellow is not normally found in regular speech today, but if you lived 450 years ago you might have come across the following text,
“They say that… they see the houses turne topsy turuye, and men to walke with theyr heeles vpwarde.”
Richard Eden wrote that in his work, “The decades of the newe worlde”, written in 1555. To which I say, “veryr coole”.
So topsy-turvy refers to things that are upside down or otherwise in disarray. It goes without saying that my favorite synonym for this phrase is higgledy-piggledy, which has no discernible meaning but is fun to say out loud in elevators. Try it! You will be the life of the party, at least for a minute or two.
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