SPINGLISH

An all-you-need dictionary of “spin”, Spinglish is the essential guide to using “spin,” with misleading and manipulative words for everyday and special occasions, by bestselling humor writers Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf.

The art of political spin is a delicate one, indeed. If you want to succeed in politics without really lying—and business, sports, the arts, and basically any other field—you must perfect the art of terminological inexactitude. With over 100,000 copies of their collaborative book The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook sold (1992, published in the US by Villard and by HarperCollins in the UK) Henry Beard and Chris Cerf have returned to compile a handy dictionary—a bullshictionary, if you will—that will make you an expert in misdirection in no time. Wish you could nimbly side-step a straightforward question without batting an eye? Not sure how to apologize while also…not apologizing? Look no further; Spinglish has you covered.

Some examples of Spinglish:

Accidental delivery of ordnance equipment: Bombing something other than your intended target – a civilian hospital, for example, or your own troops.

Conscious uncoupling: Divorce

Food insecurity: Hunger

Hiking the Appalachian trail: Committing adultery

“I’m not sure I agree, but…”: An introductory phrase that permits you to venture an outrageous opinion, make a baseless charge, or insult or excoriate somebody, without taking any responsibility for your words. Consider the following quotation from the U.K.’s Property Investment Project, which maintains a website for landlords: “I’m not saying I agree, but it’s easy to understand why estate agents notoriously receive a bad wrap (rightly or wrongly so) for being snake oil parasites that would stab their nans for a fiver.”

Temporarily geographically misplaced: A term used by the U.S. Air Force to describe a lost plane.

Henry Beard attended Harvard University and was a member of the Harvard Lampoon. He went on to found the National Lampoon with Douglas Kenney and served as its editor during the magazine’s heyday in the 1970s. He has written numerous bestselling humor books.

Christopher Cerf is an American author, composer-lyricist, voice actor, and record and television producer. He was a founding contributor to National Lampoon and is known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous articles and books.