Red herring is an English-language idiom, a logical fallacy that misleads or detracts from the issue. It is also a literary device that leads readers or characters towards a false conclusion, often used in mystery or detective fiction.
The origin of the expression has a number of theories. Conventional wisdom has long attributed it to a technique of training hounds to follow a scent, or of distracting hounds during a fox hunt, but modern linguistic research suggests that it was most likely a literary device invented in 1807 by English polemicist William Cobbett, and never an actual practice of hunters. The phrase was later borrowed to provide a formal name for the logical fallacy, and is also a formal name for a literary device or technique.
Read more about Red Herring: Logical Fallacy, Literary Device, History of The Idiom
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or herring:
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
“Have caviar if you like, but it tastes like herring to me.”
—William A. Drake (1900–1965)