Spin; Spin Doctor:

The following is typical of what various dictionaries have to say about the word ‘spin’ and its associated term ‘spin doctor’. Viz.:

• spin (tr.v.): to provide an interpretation of (a statement or event, for example), especially in a way meant to sway public opinion.

• spin doctor (n.; slang): a person who publicises favourable interpretations of the words and actions of a public figure, especially a politician. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

• spin (n.): a bias or slant on information, intended to create a favourable impression when it is presented to the public; an interpretation, a viewpoint. 

• spin doctor (n.): a political spokesperson employed to promote a favourable interpretation of events to journalists. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

• spin (v.): to present information in a way meant to influence public opinion. 

• spin doctor (n.): somebody whose job is to present to the public the policies, actions, or words of a person or organisation in their best possible light. ~ (Encarta English Dictionary).

• spin (n): a special point of view, emphasis, or interpretation presented for the purpose of influencing opinion.

• spin doctor (n): a person (as a political aide) responsible for ensuring that others interpret an event from a particular point of view. ~ (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

So, basically the vituperative sock-puppeteer is providing an interpretation of a statement or event, especially in a way meant to sway public opinion and/or is putting a bias or slant on information so as to create a favourable impression and/or is presenting information in a way meant to influence public opinion and/or is presenting a special point of view, emphasis, or interpretation for the purpose of influencing opinion.

This definition just happens to be particularly apt:

Ha! ... rephrasing the above example, ‘Charlie’ is the sock-puppeteer’s spin doctor.

Come in Spinner:

The term ‘come in spinner’ typically refers to the verbal art of the wind-up – ‘a deliberate attempt to provoke someone by misleading or hoaxing; a trick, a tease, a practical joke’ (Oxford Dictionary) – in that it marks the moment when the narrator, the trickster spinning the yarn (aka telling the tale), tells the hapless listener they have been conned (duped, tricked, cheated, swindled). The stakes in this game are not, however, just the small change of little truths but the status of truths themselves. In order to arrive at that moment when the narrator can say ‘come in spinner’ to the gulled listener, they have to give away those little truths that will be recognised, picked up, and followed ... followed right up the garden path. In fact, in order to mislead, the narrator must tell the truth. In order to produce difference, to put the listener in a another place from where they think the narrator is, the narrator has to convince them they are in the same place.

Needless is it to add that a suitably motivated listener/ reader can self-administer such a wind-up, deliberately conning themselves into fancying they are at the same place as the speaker/writer despite many clear warnings to the contrary, until the pivotal point arrives when the penny drops (aka understanding dawns) and they are left with nothing but egg on their face ... ‘a condition of looking foolish or being embarrassed or humiliated by the turn of events’. (Oxford Dictionary)

I never put my fellow human being in the spinner – more than a few of them do that all of their own accord by attempting the impossible (endeavouring to comprehend the new paradigm in terms of the old paradigm) – and neither am I indulging in the verbal art of the wind-up, as described above, either.

On the contrary, I am entirely sincere ... what another does with my words is, however, something else entirely.

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