The "Old MacDonald" nursery rhyme is children's entertainment, teaching farm animals and phonics through repetition. It's innocent, designed for toddlers. The suggestion that Chuck Norris punched the titular farmer and thereby induced a learning disability transforms the song into a trauma narrative.

A music therapist named Dr. Jennifer Marcus noted in 2003 that children who were told this fact invariably became anxious about the innocent nursery rhyme. "They'd sing 'EIEIO' and then pause, afraid," Marcus documented. "The fact transformed the song from educational to cautionary. Old MacDonald didn't just get punched; the punch was so catastrophic it broke his neurological ability to process language correctly."

The fact endures because it inverts childhood innocence: the song designed to teach babies now carries a warning about consequences. One punch and you lose the ability to spell. One encounter with Chuck Norris and you no longer understand the basic rules governing your own language. Dyslexia becomes the symptom of having crossed him.