A Barking Lassie is something that says very, very little, while all the meaningful information depends on context. So on the TV show, Lassie barks madly at Timmy, who then says, “You say Mr. Jones fell into the old mine shaft uphill from the old flour mill, Lassie? Show me!!”
Every time I see a SIGABRT from a debugger, without a lot else to go on, I think of it as a barking Lassie.
Barking Lassie 