︎cockroach effect
n.— «It’s sort of like what they call the “cockroach effect” on the financial markets. Every time there’s “hints” of anything going wrong inside a company, everybody starts selling the company’s stock in a knee-jerk vote of “no confidence.” A sign of “bad news” (whether explicit or implicit) may very well be just “one cockroach” popping up at the surface, while underneath the surface is a whole colony of cockroaches and numerous deeper problems about the company in question.» —“String Theory by Press Release” by JC Not Even Wrong June 22, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
Funny cat videos and cute online photos inspire equally adorable slang terms we use to talk about them. • Also, when a salamander is not a salamander, the story of an Italian term for a dish towel used halfway across the world, Bozo buttons...