Talk:Red herring (disambiguation)

Links
I noticed some of the items in the list don't have links to the kinds of red herrings they refer to. — Daniel 01:10, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Red Herring Artists
I have added an entry for Red Herring - The Artists collective and a link to its page DavidP 13:16, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There may be a reference to red herrings in the movie MirrorMask. A character is forced to give a riddle in order to save their life. The riddle makes no sense given the answer, and only serves to send the target on a fruitless chase for an answer.

"What's green, hangs on a wall, and whistles?" "A herring." "A herring isn't green!" "You can paint it." "A herring doesn't hang on a wall!" "You can nail it." "A herring doesn't whistle!" "I just said that to make it less obvious." 70.176.194.33 11:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Just stopping in, and noticed this line:

"The phrase is believed to originate 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 odor of herring instead."

My question is this: is the odor of the herring really "the false odor of herring"? It seems like it would be better put simply like this, "... and follow the odor of the herring instead."


 * Funny I must have been changing the line as you were reading it, It now reads:

"The phrase is believed to originate 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."
 * hope the English spelling of odour is acceptable :)

Anon - November 20, 2005

Nuetrality?
The example "(e.g, that Iraq was a threat to the U.S.A.)" is rather biased and out of place.

Not really disambiguation page
It has become an article about the origin and meaning of the word, etc. I don't have time at the moment to change the disambiguating part at the moment, though. TimBentley (talk) 18:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

This article deals entirely with the term/phrase regarding a "misleading diversion or distraction", as described on the current disambiguation page. The meanings in this article all fall easily within the scope of discussing "red herring" as a term. The only things you could try to move to the disambig page are ignoratio elenchi and macguffin, and those are just results of multiple overlapping terms. Renaming this page to red herring (term) would fix the issue definitively, but I don't think that's neccessary.

Disambiguation information
The entire first section of this article belongs on the disambiguation article since it is differentiating between different kinds of red herring. This page should be about the fish, not the logical fallacy. A page for the logical fallacy should be set up, unless it already exists (Red herring (logical fallacy)). &mdash; Chris53516 (Talk) 17:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually, there's no such fish as a 'red herring'. There are certainly herring, but the 'red' is the result of smoking for preservation, similar to bacon. This was a traditional and common food staple, as noted in the reference. However, that's covered thoroughly in the kipper article.

Note also that the bulk of the article discusses the 'false clue' meaning, not the logical fallacy - and indeed, the logical fallacy is covered, briefly, on the ignoratio elenchi page.Tofof 09:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that the Ignoratio elenchi page does give a brief and proper comparison to a 'red herring', so I added a link to the Ignoratio elenchi page, as this word has a link from that page and many know more of this phrase than the Latin one. If it is deemed unneccessary, please let me know, thanks! ˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ziggaway (talk • contribs) 23:39, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Da Vinci Code
I'm Italian, and "Aringarosa" does not mean "red herring" but "pink herring". Gspinoza 14:30, 18 January 2007 (CET)But we get the idea right?

Tidy up
I neither have an account here, nor am I a native speaker - so I am not going to try and fail at correcting this, but does: "Also a false conclusion to a stories conclusions,such clues a character or evidence to mislead the reader of veiwer of a mystery story." really make sense to anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.178.147.217 (talk) 05:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC) Odd nursery rhyme reference moved to cultural references (delete altogether?)

Odd speculation removed: "It's also possible that the phrase "red herring" came into use simply because its appearance and smell are particularly distracting to people in eating situations, an explanation which accounts for its appearance as well as its smell."

If you've chosen to eat kippers, why should they be distracting? They are hardly Durian fruit.

Etymology tidied up - it implied that hounds first had to be trained with kipper trails before being distracted by them... 84.92.241.186 11:34, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Additions/reordering?
In general usage, a red herring is anything that can mislead or draw attention away from the issue in hand. However, this article only mentions deliberate misleading as a narrative technique or logical fallacy (with the latter relegated to 5th place on the list). The original (as I understand it) meaning of the term (a kipper) is only in second place, with no indication of how/why it relates to the other use.

My suggestion, which I will implement in a couple of days if no-one objects, would be to rearrange the article to something like this:


 * A red herring is another name for a kipper: a smoked, dried herring. The strong smell of this foodstuff means it can be used[citation needed] to mask the scent of a fox from pursuing hounds.  The common meaning of the term, something that can (or is intended to) divert attention from the issue in hand, is derived from this practice.  More detailed information about the deliberate use of (metaphorical) red herrings as a narrative technique or as a logical fallacy can be found in their respective articles.


 * Other meanings of "red herring" include: 

Incidentally, does anyone have a citation for the actual use of smoked herrings to mislead (or alternatively, as at least one of the linked articles claims, to train) fox hounds? It's a claim I've often heard, but never seen any evidence of. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wardog (talk • contribs) 16:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Red herring (idiom) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 18:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC).