Topsy turvy

China, and Ganges, and Japan, / Are Words my Papa taught my Pen. He ſays, they're Countries to be found, / In a ſtrange World, below the Ground; / Where Folks with Feet erected treat, / And diſtant, downward hang their Head; / Fearleſs they topſy turvy run, / With naught beneath—but Skies and Sun.

[A]s the Parſon told us laſt Sunday, nobody believes in the Devil now-a-days; and here you bring about a Parcel of Puppets dreſt up like Lords and Ladies, only to turn the Heads of poor Country Wenches, and when their Heads are once turned topſy turvy, no wonder every thing elſe is ſo.

[John] Chrysostom saith, An Oath came in when Evils increased, when men appeared unfaithful, when all things became Topsy Turvy.

If I travel Aunt, I touch at your Antipodes—your Antipodes are a good raſcally ſort of topſy turvy Fellows—If I had a Bumper I'd ſtand upon my Head and drink a Health to ’em— [...]

The best-known examples of children’s nonsense language play, and their ‘topsy turvies’, or inversion of reality, are in Chukovsky, who asserts that such topsy turvies ‘strengthen (not weaken) the child’s awareness of reality’ [...].

Mr. [George] Eliot's descriptions of scenery are perfect: [...] and so are his descriptions of children. [...] We forbear (though with regret) the introduction to our readers of Totty's bald doll, ignominously ‘topsy turvied’ by her insulting brother.

Being from a lower caste, she earns her meager livelihood by cleaning the stairs and guarding the locality (the conventional roles are topsy turvyed).