What’s the origin of the term “red herring”?
According to Funk, a red herring is merely a herring that has been smoked, which gives the flesh a reddish hue. It has a particularly persistent odor, (I think that’s a kind word for “it stinks pretty good”) and was used at one time for training dogs to follow a scent. Since the odor is so strong, it can also throw the dogs off the trail when tracking something else. That’s how it came to be used for a distraction or something to shift attention to something else.
This sig not Y2K compliant. Happy 1900.
<Quote from Red Herring magazine>In the 1800s, wily British fugitives discovered that rubbing a herring across their trail would divert the bloodhounds hot in their pursuit. In the 1920s, equally clever American investment bankers began calling preliminary prospectuses “red herrings” as a warning to investors that the documents were not complete or final.</Q>