rubber ear
n.— «Steven came up and spoke to me before the game saying he was not feeling too well but I gave him the rubber ear and told him he was playing and to get on with it.» —“Football: Lossie Put The Shutters Up At Last” by Steven Rattray Scottish Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland) Dec. 8, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement” speakers interrupt or talk along with someone else to signal their enthusiasm...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...