voodoo poll
n.— «The telephone has made opinion polling vastly easier and faster. It has encouraged not only the carefully structured poll, which confronts a large random sample with a well-designed question, but what Robert Worcester, head of MORI, Britain’s largest polling firm, calls the “voodoo poll,” whereby newspaper readers or television viewers are encouraged to telephone with their opinions on some burning issue of the day. Charging a premium rate for the call makes money, too.» —“Special—Democracy And Technology—Electioneering” Econmist (U.K.) June 17, 1995. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...
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...