Are you talking about "Somebody else's problem"? From the books: "An SEP [somebody else's problem] is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem.... The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye."

Apparently, this term is now actually used in Psychology to describe actual phenomena, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_elses_problem

Ah thanks for linking it, that is what I meant. :)

Btw., your link was broken. Here is the correct one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Elses_Problem

Both links are wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Elses_Problem

OK this is getting ridiculous, we all posted the same link and they're all broken. Maybe it's a problem with HN?

Here's another attempt, I want to see what happens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Elses_Problem

EDIT: OK, the problem is HN removes the apostrophe (') from the word "Else's". Not sure why.

Most interestingly, that is the heart of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis posited in linguistics.

The "strong" intrepretation was proven false by the fact that American Indians had no name for ships that sail the high seas. Yet, they still described them best in their own language. There are weaker ways to apply the theorem, but most efforts have went to Chomsky's universal grammar.