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Reader question: What does the phrase "put a spin on it" mean? My comments: Politicians are constantly putting a spin on something. I mean, political spin is what comes uppermost to my mind. And that means they are twisting a story around in order to make the story appear more favorable. In other words, to put a spin on something is to lie about it. Yes, you may have sensed it; there is a somewhat derogative connotation to the phrase. Physically, if you spin something, you turn it round and round. You give washed clothes a spin, for example, to remove water. Figuratively speaking, if you spin a story, you, er, you just don't tell it straight. Take beggars in the street, for example. They are often seen "spinning" painful, hard-luck stories in front of passersby in order to win more sympathy from anyone who stops to listen. And politicians and businesspeople tend put a spin on nearly everything these days if they make an address to the public, partially thanks (or no thanks) to the advent of the Internet. It is simply more difficult for anyone to hide anything any more. Hence all the spin, if you want to take a sympathetic view of it, is borne out of necessity, necessity to survive as administrations and companies all have to survive in order to thrive. But others see "the rise of spin as a real problem for democracy because it masks transparency and provides the public with distorted information" (How To Master Political Spin, uniffors.com, October 11th, 2007). Ah, serious. | 
