Thread: Clever misdirection of the populus

Is it said like that? I heard it in this video: THE SECOND GRECO - PERSIAN WAR - YouTube If it is, then why do I only get 3 results when searching for it on Google? If it's not, then how is it?

Is what said like what? Searching for what?

And do you mean "populace"?

p.s. an occasional dialogue or even "thank you" to people who have answered your questions would not be a bad thing...

I get only 6 results, when I search for "clever misdirection of the populace".

More importantly, what exactly are you looking for?

"Clever misdirection of the populace" sounds as though it's from some conspiracy theory or another, whereas I get the impression you're looking for something a bit more specific in history or politics.

A bit of a clue would help.

Which suggests it is not a very common phrase. <shrug>

(One of the results is now this thread. That was quick.)

"clever misdirection of the populace" is a phrase describing a concept that could be expressed in several other ways. If you consider the structure of the phrase as " X Y of the Z" then we have, as a minimum, the following options:

X= clever; intelligent; smart; shrew; astute; cunning; insightful; adroit.

Y = misdirection; refocusing; defocusing; reorienting; redirecting.

Z = populace; people; population; society; citizens; public; community.

That gives us 280 possible ways of expressing that concept. I think your Google search was poorly phrased. If you could take the time to answer the questions asked by Strange and adelady then it might be easier to provide you with assistance.

Interestingly, "clever misdirection" is reasonably frequent in search results. It just doesn't seem to be used very often with an (indirect) object.

A more accurate tool for this sort of thing is the the Google Ngram Viewer. "Misdirection" occurs with a frequency of around 0.000024% but "clever misdirection" is about 1000 times less common. (*)
Google Ngram Viewer

And "[clever] misdirection of the populace" doesn't appear at all.


(*) Not surprisingly, most of these are about magic or literature.

Depending on your perspective/ predilections "clever misdirection of the populace" can be a number of things.
Propaganda being the usual word.
Misinformation, disinformation, publicity, advertising, indoctrination, government press release...

Thats because it is a "phrase" or "sentence", and not an "expression"