spinning in the grave

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 5:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â spinning in the grave
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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"Roll over, Beethoven!"

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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