concept
Red Herring
A misleading clue planted to draw attention away from the real one.
Origin
The phrase comes from the practice of using strong-smelling smoked herring (which turns reddish) to train hunting dogs to ignore distracting scents โ popularized in a 1807 satirical piece by William Cobbett that used the trick as a political metaphor. The mystery-novel sense of a deliberate plot misdirection followed.
Modern usage
Standard in detective fiction, debate, and legal arguments โ sometimes for a deliberate distraction, sometimes for an unintentional one. 'That's a red herring' is a debate-stopper.
In the wild
The financial scandal turned out to be a red herring; the real story was the affair.โ common usage
Tags
misdirection
mystery