The "downword facing dog"

[Joel S. Berson]

 From Mr. Boffo, July 20, titled "The New Army":

Female-looking sergeant says "Drop and give me fifty down-word facing
dogs" [hyphen at end of line].  One of the four lined-up recruits is
on all fours with his butt in the air.

A new (military?) term to me.  But amending the obvious strange
spelling does explain the phrase and cartoon:  A yoga posture called
"downward facing dog"; illustration at http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/491.

80,700 hits for "downward facing dog", 107 for "downword facing dog",
51,600 for "downword" itself.

Are there any interesting tales about whence this misspelling
arose?  (Searching for "downword" + "linguistics" brings up about 162
tantalizing snippets with more than jot of jargon, but nothing that
makes sense among the first two dozen or so.)

Joel

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