The only thing that matters here is: did you understand what the phrase was intended to mean? I think it's pretty clear from your comment that you did. And thus it was a successful turn of phrase.
I interpreted the statement as a tongue in cheek joke. One of the ever present dangers of the printed word, we can look at one sentence and come away with different meanings.
The language surprised me too! I realize the researchers wanted to be extra cautious (enough to pass peer-review) and that's the reason I did a literal quote instead of paraphrasing.
I thought that’s all it was, but as the video went on it seemed people thought he meant something different by the term, and they did perceive what he meant when he explained it.
That’s way more surprising to me than folks not being good at noticing it in the first place (they seemed to do that just fine!)
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