spinning in the grave

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Sat May 14 21:17:03 UTC 2011


I just posted a message that featured the comment, "The Founders are
spinning."

OED doesn't have it. OK, but neither does it have to "spin in one's grave."
Yet the cliche', to "turn over in one's grave" seems just as absent.

I'm guessing I noticed "turn over..." by 1970; "spin..." ten or fifteen
years later; plain "spinning" only in the 21st Century.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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