Red herring

This article is about the idiom and the logical fallacy. For the type of preserved food, see kipper. For other uses, see Red herring (disambiguation).

In the mystery novel A Study in Scarlet, the detective Sherlock Holmes examines a clue which is later revealed to be intentionally misleading.

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question.[1] It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion. A red herring may be used intentionally, as in mystery fiction or as part of rhetorical strategies (e.g., in politics), or may be used in argumentation inadvertently.[2]

The term was popularized in 1807 by English polemicist William Cobbett, who told a story of having used a strong-smelling smoked fish to divert and distract hounds from chasing a rabbit.[3]

  1. ^ "red herring, n." Oxford English Dictionary. OED Third Edition, September 2009. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015.
  2. ^ Red-Herring (15 May 2019). "Red Herring". txstate.edu. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  3. ^ Dupriez, Bernard Marie (1991). A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A–Z. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-6803-3.