Originally Posted by
Nolan Kienitz
Upside down outlets are not necessarily so.
Read somewhere recently that installing receptacles with the ground leg "up" was considered a safer way to install for consumer use. This due to accidental dropping of 'things' across a plug partially inserted. With the ground lug "up" the 'thing' dropped won't simply hit the hot/neutral and short out.
I'm sure Jerry P. can add to this with more history.
The idea of an upside down outlet is that if a piece of metal say a paper clip fell on top of the plug, the first thing it would hit would be the grounding prong also if the plug pulls out of the wall the last prong to come out of the outlet would be the ground. Many commercial projects are specked like this.