Spindle (stationery)
A spindle (or colloquially, a spike) is an upright spike used to temporarily hold papers. "Spindling" or "spiking" is the act of spearing an item onto the spike. A spindle was often used in restaurants to hold orders from the waitstaff to the kitchen.[1]
Depending on what sort of records were on a spindle, a string could be put through the holes to bundle the papers together, and the bundle stored.[2]
The journalistic term to "spike" an article refers to one that ends up spindled on an editor's desk rather than forwarded for publication, typically for reasons other than mere copyedits.[3]
Spindling was the middle of three stern prohibitions in the famous injunction historically printed on punched card documents to be processed by a computer: "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate".[2]
References
- Porter, Elias H. (May 1962). "The Parable of the Spindle". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 29, 2018.
- Lubar, Steven (1991). "'Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate': A Cultural History of the Punch Card" (PDF). Journal of American Culture. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 20, 2010.
- Lipson, Charles (June 3, 2015). "Spike It! When the Media Kill a Story for Political Reasons". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved July 2, 2021.