the.com/survey
a polite interrogation where your honest opinion goes to die in a pie chart
means To examine, measure, or question something systematically — whether mapping a plot of land, inspecting a building, or collecting people's opinions in a set of questions.
from From the Latin 'super-' (over) plus 'videre' (to see) — literally 'to look over,' a relative of 'vision' and 'view.' It came into English through the Old French 'surveeir,' carrying the idea of overseeing or inspecting. The land-measuring sense came first; the questionnaire sense — looking over a group's opinions — is a much later extension of that same overhead gaze.
- ancient roots
- Romans surveyed land with a tool called a groma
- question order
- Earlier questions secretly bias your later answers
- satisfaction trap
- Middle options get picked to avoid commitment
- low response
- Most online surveys see single-digit completion rates
- loaded wording
- One swapped word can flip the entire result
gallup poll — largest polling organization in us, tracked american public opinion since 1935
pew research center — conducts over 4,000 surveys annually across 40+ countries on politics, religion, and society