spin

spin

1. The form for the regular past tense and past participle of the verb is spun:

• The other man spun towards the sound, gun extended, ready to fire —A. Lejeune, 1986

• I was spun round, and dragged back —A. Billson, 1993.

Before the 20c span was commonly used for the past tense but this is now a deviant form.

2. The noun, which formally means ‘an act of spinning’, has been appropriated by the language of politics to refer to what the OED describes as ‘a bias or slant on information, intended to create a favourable impression when it is presented to the public; an interpretation or viewpoint’. If a single sense has to be identified as the source, it is probably the cricketing sense of a twisting motion given to the ball when bowled or thrown, which can cause the ball to bounce away from a straight path. So now we have a new and seamy meaning that is as closely associated with the political life of the first years of the 21c as back to basics was with that of the 1990s. It has given rise to compound forms, including spin machine and-most notably-spin doctor, an evocative term for a political press agent or publicist employed to put the right spin on ideas and events for public consumption. This use of spin has also fed back to the verb, giving a new force to the sense of ‘spinning a yarn’:

• The government stood accused of plotting to spin its way out of its failure to meet European targets on renewable energy on Monday —Morning Star, 2007.