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
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...
Floordrobe is the new word for an old habit: piling your clothes on the floor instead of putting them away. The Oxford English Dictionary recently added an entry for it, defining floordrobe as “an untidy heap of discarded clothing left on the floor...