“Spin” has acquired an additional definition in recent decades, referring to the particular emphasis or deemphasis of facts in a story to produce a response deemed favorable by whomever is telling the story.
Or something like that.
So how did “spin” come to be used in this fashion? Is it a reference to the “spin” associated with subatomic quarks, which drastically alters their behavior? Is it about the “spin” imparted to a cue ball or bowling ball by a player so as to dodge certain obstacles while hitting others?
Something else?
Hard to be certain. Could also have come from golf or tennis. Samclem, I believe, is one poster who is very good at rooting out first or early usages for various mundane contemporary turns of phrase – I’d be interested in his input.
Meanwhile, just thinking it through: it’s not much of a semantic leap to go from “This is damaging information … how do we turn this around?” to “How do we spin this around?” to “How do we spin this?” This kind of on-the-fly semantic shift is very common in human language.
The OED dates the usage from 1973. It probably derives from the same common source of a ball spinning. It could be from pool/billiards (though the term in that case is “english”) or baseball (one of the earliest entries for “spin doctor” indicates this, but it’s from the Toronto Globe and Mail, a decade after the term of political spin was first used). I doubt it has anything to do with subatomic physics, since newspapers and politicians are not likely to use something so technical when a more prosaic source is available.
The connection to spin on balls, like in pool, seems obvious to me. In both cases, you’re taking a hit from a particular direction (presumably a negative one), and twisting it so that the end result is that your ball, or politician, moves in a direction more to your liking.
Might bowling also be a contender?
1968 article using the term ‘verbal spin.’ My guess would be pool, also.
See www.word-detective.com and check the Archive. That’s the website written by Evan Morris, the Word Detective. Here’s the link to his specific column: Issue of July 21, 2004 doctor … Basically, he ties it to “spin” in cricket (the game, not the insect.)
I could probably spin a good yarn about the origins of this term, but I don’t really know…
I’ve been in public relations for 30 years. I can’t tell you where the term “spin” came from, but I can assure you the number of terms appropriated by the industry from the field of subatomic physics is vanishingly small.