Red herring

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The phrase red herring has a number of metaphorical senses that share the general sense of something being a diversion or distraction from the original objective:

a type of logical fallacy in which one purports to prove one's point by means of irrelevant arguments. See Ignoratio elenchi.
in politics, a minor or even phony issue trumped up as being of great importance, in order to influence voters to vote for one party or candidate and against the other, or distract from more important issues that might help the opposing party.
in literature, a plot device intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending. See also MacGuffin.
in detective work, mystery fiction, and puzzle-solving, a false clue which leads investigators, readers, or solvers towards an incorrect solution.
in adventure games, an item or object of no practical use; its purpose may be to frustrate the gamer who tries to find the intended use for it.

The phrase may have originated from the practice of saving a hunted fox by dragging a red herring across its trail to cause the pursuing hounds to lose the true scent and follow the false trail of herring odour instead. In this context the Oxford English Dictionary records its first written use occurring in 1686 "To draw a red herring across the track". There are however reasons to question this attribution of the metaphor. There also is a nursery rhyme, 'The Man in the Wilderness', in which a man answers the question of how many strawberries grew in the sea with 'As many as red herrings grew in the wood'.

As a fish

A red herring, also referred to as a kipper, is a dried, smoked, herring. The curing process turns the fish red. This sense of the phrase can be dated to the mid seventeenth century, and is used by Samuel Pepys in his diary for the entry of 28 February 1660 "Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before."

Other uses

Red herring can also refer to:

Red herring prospectus in finance, a preliminary prospectus for an offering of stock (fresh issue of equity shares), so called for the notice in red type required by law at the top of the front page
Brief document for venture capitalists tempting them to following up with an investment in the business plan
Red Herring (magazine) founded in the dot-com boom of the 1990s
Red Herring Surf, a brand of surfgear in Tasmania
Red Herring Artists collective based in Brighton on the south coast of England founded in 1984
Red Herring Theatre Ensemble, a professional theatre company in Columbus, Ohio [link]
Radio controled "flying-wing" glider kit made by Liftworx.
Character in the cartoon series A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
Play by Michael Hollinger

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References

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