dog whistle effect
n.— «About 15 percent more people were “very happy” when the alternative was being merely “fairly happy.” Maybe they were really that happy, or maybe the pollsters offered them unacceptable choices. Anyway, researchers call this the “Dog Whistle Effect”: Respondents hear something in the question that researchers do not.» —“Behind the Numbers: Confessions Of a Pollster” by Richard Morin Washington Post Oct. 16, 1988. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
While reading Dean Koontz’s book The House at the End of the World (Bookshop|Amazon), a listener in Ramona, California, encountered the perfect word for the walks he takes with his dog. He now refers to such an excursion as a sniffari. This is...