Is there a name for this sort of question?

No, actually -- is there a name for the specific type of question which poses as a request for esoteric information, but would not have been asked if the obvious answer was correct, and is actually designed as a conversation piece?

E.g.: Which has more hotel rooms - NYC or all of India?

This question is unlikely to come up in casual conversation, and if someone leads with it, it is because the obvious answer -- India, because India has many big cities, NYC is just one of the largest -- is wrong.

It's a standard conversational gambit, and there ought to be a name for it.

Is there a name for this sort of question?

No, actually -- is there a name for the specific type of question which poses as a request for esoteric information, but would not have been asked if the obvious answer was correct, and is actually designed as a conversation piece?

E.g.: Which has more hotel rooms - NYC or all of India?

This question is unlikely to come up in casual conversation, and if someone leads with it, it is because the obvious answer -- India, because India has many big cities, NYC is just one of the largest -- is wrong.

It's a standard conversational gambit, and there ought to be a name for it.

Books

_The Cleaner_, Brett Battles

Contemporary action-thriller; the twist is that it doesn't follow the lone assassin or the hunter of same. The protagonist is, theoretically, an auxiliary contractor -- the sort of person who makes sure that the police are paid off, customs has their palms greased, there's a doctor who makes house-calls off the books and for cash, and so forth. Oh, and while he's self-reliant and goes to exotic countries to do dangerous things, he has an apprentice to teach, and was once an apprentice himself.

That premise could have become a much more interesting book than this one.

Instead we get the aforementioned protagonist having a job turn bad, leading in short order to a Bourne-style chase across Thailand and Germany in which he behaves exactly like a lone assassin.

My biggest complaint, however: on four separate occasions, a professional is tailed in a car, and on all four occasions the pro knows what is happening and either loses the tail or explains why he didn't want to do so. The fifth time a professional is tailed -- this time by the Good Guy -- he is oblivious, despite apparently taking the standard precautions of the young and Bondish. A little consistency would be nice.

Books

_The Cleaner_, Brett Battles

Contemporary action-thriller; the twist is that it doesn't follow the lone assassin or the hunter of same. The protagonist is, theoretically, an auxiliary contractor -- the sort of person who makes sure that the police are paid off, customs has their palms greased, there's a doctor who makes house-calls off the books and for cash, and so forth. Oh, and while he's self-reliant and goes to exotic countries to do dangerous things, he has an apprentice to teach, and was once an apprentice himself.

That premise could have become a much more interesting book than this one.

Instead we get the aforementioned protagonist having a job turn bad, leading in short order to a Bourne-style chase across Thailand and Germany in which he behaves exactly like a lone assassin.

My biggest complaint, however: on four separate occasions, a professional is tailed in a car, and on all four occasions the pro knows what is happening and either loses the tail or explains why he didn't want to do so. The fifth time a professional is tailed -- this time by the Good Guy -- he is oblivious, despite apparently taking the standard precautions of the young and Bondish. A little consistency would be nice.