Is the top of a lid still the top if it is upside down on the table?

Yes. The top is a description of the shape of the lid. The position of the lid relative to space is arbitrary. It might be in the same position if it were laying right-side-up on a table in Australia. There’s no “up” in space.

Yes. But give the kid some extra Nutella for asking a good and creative question.

And I will argue it is still “the top” even if it is on a bottle/jar designed to be upside-down.

Now you can talk to your daughter about quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom.

Top of the mornin’ to ye!

The fact that you recognize it as being “upside down” shows that, regardless of its current orientation, you hold a view of how it’s ideally oriented. This upside down and off-the-jar condition is just a temporary state of affairs, and so we don’t alter our conceptual understanding of the object accordingly. It’s still the top; it’s just taking a break.

Just as if you were out for a night with songle friends, but you’re still a wife. Or off on maternity leave but still a librarian.

Ah now, I think I haven’t got the question across and I also made this mistake when she first asked this question.

The lid can be called the top. It is still the lid or top even if it is not on the jar. That’s not the question. (Though we can discuss this if you like once we have resolved the actual question)

It is that when the lid is on the jar, the top of the lid (ie the flat circle, not the edge that you grip to unscrew) is the top. Is it still the top when the lid is off the jar and on the table upside down? That is the question.

I hope it is not your breakfast time too.

@thorninmud got it right. We speak of the parts of the lid as they appear when the jar is assembled. Imagine removing a door from a room in a house. Regardless of how the removed door was positioned, we would still speak of the top of the door as that part which is at the top when the door is hooked up.

The ‘top,’ in this case is a anatomical word.

Regardless of orientation, the ‘top’ is the top.

Depends, if Barbara Streisand accidently sat on the lid & it got stuck up her arse, it might sing…
“Because baby if you’re the bottom i’m the top”
I say might because as we all know, lids have no sense of humour & can’t sing.

If we assume that the top of the lid is the upside of the lid, and the lid’s position on the table is upside down, then it’s still the top of the lid, because the statement about its position has already established that its topside is facing down.

@Stinley It’s interesting that you thought they meant “is it still the top (i.e. the lid which is called the top)?” I was pretty sure they all thought that was what you were asking already.

I agree with the others – it’s a lid for a jar and the side called the top of the lid is still the top of the lid when it is lying upside down.

However it is also a valid taxonomical philosophical question, as topness is not an absolute fact, but a question of interpretation. Linguistically and how people use it, ya almost everyone is gonna say the top of the lid is the top of the lid no matter which way you turn it. However, the only fact that is absolutely true it that it’s a piece of stuff shaped like that, and you might know it was originally a lid. However if you decide to use or interpret it as something else, another part could be the top in that interpretation of the object. For example, if you decide it’s a sign or radar dish or cat food dish and use it that way, the top might be another part in those contexts/uses.

And, in a NSFW version, one can top from the bottom

@Zaku that is how I answered her. I said the top of the lid was the top of the lid because we were still thinking of it as the lid. If we started to use it differently and, say, filled the lid with water and used it as a swimming pool for flies, then it would no longer be the top.

I was exhausted by the end of the conversation (and am slightly regretting asking this question…)

Yes.

@Stinley Hehehe! :-)

Is the top of the top still the top when it’s on the bottom (or upside down)?

Yes, the top of the top (or the top of the lid) is still the top.

@Stinley If the top of your head were on the floor it is still the top of your head. Methinks.

@si3tech Yet if you turn the top of a skull into a bowl, the top of the skull becomes the bottom of the bowl.

@Zaku Yeah but then it’s a bowl, not a skull.