Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
spin (n., v.), spin doctor (n.)
The principal parts of this strong verb are spin, spun, spun. The noun spin has several specialized senses beyond its basic “the act of spinning.” The clipped spin (from tailspin) is Standard, describing the aircraft’s rotating, stalled dive; Standard too is the sense “a dizzied mental or emotional state” (I’m confused—in a spin about all this). At best Conversation and Semiformal is the sense “a short trip in or on a vehicle,” as in He took me for a spin on his motorcycle.
A new slang and jargon sense of the noun comes from the argot of political campaigners and their spokespeople: “a new, distinctive interpretation, even a distortion, of a statement or an opinion,” as in She took his press statement’s apparent blunder and put a spin on it that would be acceptable to the voters. A person employed to do that sort of thing is what current slang calls a spin doctor. The figurative analogy is with bowling or billiards or another ballgame: seeking to gain an advantage, the player puts spin on the ball, to make it react differently from a ball without the spin and to make it deceive (or persuade) the receiver. See PUT ENGLISH ON.
