Origin of "Red Herring"

[Jackknifed Juggernaut]

Where did the term originate? BTW, I did a search for "herring" in GQ and found nothing related.

[aldiboronti]

Try here.

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010718.html

It gives a summary of possible origins and links for further details.

[yabob]

World Wide Words has a rather lengthy article on it:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm

which takes an extraordinarily long route to get to the usual explanation of red herrings being used to lay false trails for hounds, and then cast suspicion on it in the last three paragraphs.

[tomndebb]

The Random House Word Maven's Word of the Day (http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19960731) on the subject.

The Word Detective (http://www.word-detective.com/042601.html#redherring) addresses the matter.

Word Origins (http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorr.htm) has an odd little spin on it, here.