Etymologie, Etimología, Étymologie, Etimologia, Etymology, (griech.) etymología, (lat.) etymologia, (esper.) etimologio
UK Vereinigtes Königreich Großbritannien und Nordirland, Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord, Regno Unito di Gran Bretagna e Irlanda del Nord, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (esper.) Britujo
Jägerlatein, Fanfarronadas de cazador, Argot des chasseurs, Trovata da cacciatore, Hunters yarns, (esper.) idiomo casisto

red herring (W3)

• 1. a herring cured by salting and slow smoking to a dark brown color
• 2. something that distracts attention from the real issue

red herring

Definitions (2)

• 1. General: Irrelevant issue or point, raised often as a distraction.
• 2. Securities: Popular term for preliminary official statement.

red herring

Definition: same as preliminary prospectus. Its name comes from the warning, printed in red, that information in the document is still being reviewed by the SEC and is subject to change.

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In Play: "Red herring" comes from the phrase "to draw a red herring across the track", originating in the second half of the 17th century.

Because the scent was so strong and familiar to the dogs, farmers took up the practice of dragging a red herring around their fields to divert the howling hounds and stamping steeds of the fox hunt away from their crops. Fleeing criminals would also mislead blood hounds in hot pursuit by dragging the occasional red herring across their tracks and sending the dogs off on a wild goose chase.

Word History: Yes, a red herring can send you on a wild goose chase. This is another common English idiom with an interesting story. After all, exactly what is it that wild geese are supposed to chase? In fact, the wild goose chase was a kind of horse race of 17th century England in which the horses behind the leader had to follow the leader's course. This encouraged the leader to set as tortuous and confusing a course as possible to prevent the other horses from passing. A wild goose chase thus became a confusing chase in many directions with little chance of success. The name of this race was chosen because wild geese always strictly follow a leader in their migrations across the spring and autumn skies.
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"red herring". A diversion, distraction, or misdirection that draws attention from the main subject at hand. "And [the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings] are simply a 'red herring' to keep from doing what they ought to do" (President Harry S Truman, press conference, 8/5/48).

"Herring", which turn red when smoked, originally were used to teach dogs how to follow a scent. "The trailing or dragging of a dead Cat, or Fox, (and in case of necessity a Red-Herring) three or four miles . . . and then laying the Dogs on the scent" (Nicholas Cox, The Gentleman's Recreation, 1686). It probably wasn't too long after this that some smart felon figured out that dogs could be distracted by drawing a red herring across his trail. By the late nineteenth century, the term was being used in the present, figurative sense: "The talk of revolutionary dangers is a mere red herring" (Liverpool Daily Post, 7/11/1884). See also FISH.

Red Herring (The)

of a novel is a hint or statement in the early part of the story to put the reader on the wrong scent. In all detective stories a "red herring" is trailed across the scent. The allusion is to trailing a "red herring" on the ground to destroy the scent and set the dogs at fault. A "red herring" is a herring dried and smoked.

"Red Herring"

Drawing a red herring across the path. Trying to divert attention from the main question by some side-issue. A red herring drawn across a fox’s path destroys the scent and sets the dogs at fault.

Neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. Something insipid and not good eating. Neither one thing nor another.

red herring - a distraction initially appearing significant - from the metaphor of dragging a red (smoked) herring across the trail of a fox to throw the hounds off the fox's scent.

Neither fish nor flesh, nor a good red herring/Neither fish nor fowl

Lingua Franca - Language and writing in academe.

April 2, 2014 by Allan Metcalf

In Style

Style usually stands out, hoping to catch your attention. But not newspaper style. It has the opposite goal: to be as unobtrusive as possible, so as not to distract the reader from paying attention to the message.

Without a stylebook prescribing usage, the natural variation of language would be a "red herring", leading readers off the trail. For example, if one newspaper story uses the spelling "OK" while another uses "okay", a reader is likely to notice the difference and wonder why.

Are there differences in meaning between the two letters that look like an abbreviation and the four letters that look like an ordinary word? Well, that’s not what readers should be thinking about. To forestall that diversion, the newspaper stylebook, the Associated Press Stylebook in this case, instructs the writer:

“"OK", "OK’d", "OK’ing", "OKs": Do not use "okay".”

No justification, no argument. Just get on with it.
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50 Types of Propaganda

By Mark Nichol

Are you a propagandist? If you write nonfiction intended to persuade, yes, by a broad definition, you almost certainly are. Here are fifty terms for, and definitions of, forms of propaganda, at least one of which such writers will likely employ in a given piece of content.

"Propaganda" (the word is from a New Latin term meaning "propagating", synonymous in this connotation with "publicizing") has been defined as "communication intended to shape perceptions, manipulate cognition, and direct behavior". That’s a broad definition — a narrower one would limit "propaganda" to willful, prejudicial manipulation of information — but it helps writers and readers understand that because almost any content can be considered propaganda, they must be alert to the subtext of almost any content they produce or consume.
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37. "Red herring": use of irrelevant data or facts to fallaciously validate an argument
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Red herring

"red herring" (n.)

"smoked herring" early 15c. (they turn red when cured), as opposed to white herring "fresh herring". Supposedly used by fugitives to put bloodhounds off their scent (1680s), hence metaphoric sense (1864) of "something used to divert attention from the basic issue"; earlier simply "a false lead":

Though I have not the honour of being one of those sagacious country gentlemen, who have so long vociferated for the American war, who have so long run on the "red-herring" scent of American taxation before they found out there was no game on foot; (etc.) [Parliamentary speech dated March 20, 1782, reprinted in "Beauties of the British Senate," London, 1786]

"red herring"

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Red Herrings

Yesterday, I explained how harking back was to do with calling back dogs who have lost the trail of scent. Harking back is thoroughly necessary when the dogs are following a red herring. Hounds love the smell of a good red herring. Thomas Nashe observed, back in 1599, that:

Next, to draw on hounds to a sent, to a "redde herring" skinne there is nothing comparable.

So, if you want to lead a dog astray the best thing to do is to drag a red herring along the ground, thus making a false trail of scent for them to run after. It appears that this was originally done just to give the dogs and horses some exercise. You laid out a herring trail and then went for a jolly good gallop. This from the Gentleman's Recreation of 1697:

Now, that I may not leave you in Ignorance what a Train-scent is, I shall acquaint you that it has its Name as I suppose, from the Manner of it, viz. the trailing or dragging of a dead Cat or Fox (and in Case of Necessity a "Red-herring") three or four Miles, (according to the Will of the Rider, or the Directions given him) and then laying the Dogs on the Scent.

Nineteenth century huntsmen, though, got wilier. They used "red herrings" as deliberate distractions to train hounds to follow the original scent. They would lay out one scent of proper prey, and then drag a red herring across it. If the dogs followed the "red herring" they were harked back to the original trail.

So in 1836 The Times could write metaphorically that:

Mr. Rice called Lord Lyndhurst's intimation that the Government might take off the whole of the stamp duty ‘a false drag—the scent of a "red-herring" to draw off the hounds’.

And thus the modern "red herring". There is also a phrase "Neither fish, nor fowl nor good red herring." But nobody knows where that comes from at all.

And now go and look at this on Facebook: Waterstones are giving away advanced copies of my book! I saw the first copies yesterday and they are more beautiful than all other things on earth. So go to Waterstones and like it all those other facebiblical things that folk do.

Fishing with the Inky Fool

Posted by M.H. Forsyth at 12:33

• red herring: 1. something that diverts attention from the real issue.

What is 'Red Herring'

A "red herring" is a preliminary prospectus filed by a company with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), usually in connection with the company's initial public offering. A "red herring prospectus" contains most of the information pertaining to the company's operations and prospects but does not include key details of the issue, such as its price and the number of shares offered.
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"red herring" {n. phr.}: A false scent laid down in order to deceive; a phony or misleading story designed to cause confusion.

• [Ads-l] "red herring" expression--Treatment by Robert Scott Ross Ben Zimmer

• Red herring Michael Quinion

• Big Apples and Red Herrings George Thompson
• Big Apples and Red Herrings Benjamin Zimmer
• Big Apples and Red Herrings George Thompson
• Big Apples and Red Herrings Jesse Sheidlower

• "red herring" expression--Treatment by Robert Scott Ross Cohen, Gerald Leonard

• red herring; passivism; Malaya Stephen Goranson
• red herring; passivism; Malaya Benjamin Zimmer

• "Mountweazel" & "Nihilartikel" [Was: Red herring definitions] Joel S. Berson
• "Mountweazel" & "Nihilartikel" [Was: Red herring definitions] Joel S. Berson
• "Mountweazel" & "Nihilartikel" [Was: Red herring definitions] FRITZ JUENGLING

• Red herring definitions Joel S. Berson
• Red herring definitio ns RonButters at AOL.COM
• Red herring definitio ns Jonathan Lighter

• Question for "red herring" Cohen, Gerald Leonard
• Question for "red herring" Douglas G. Wilson

• red herring Liudmila Kostiukevich
• red herring Bob Haas
• red herring Bob Haas

We found 43 dictionaries with English definitions that include the word "red herring":
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red herring

Definition: an unimportant matter that draws attention away from the main subject
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In 1686, a gentleman's magazine described a good way to fool a hound and prolong a foxhunt: drag a "dead cat" across the trail to mask the fox's scent. If no cat was available drag a "red herring", because a smoked and salted red herring's odour will also mask the fox's scent. Therefore, a fake clue (set with the intention of deliberately deceiving someone) is called a "red herring."
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What's the meaning of the phrase "Neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring"?

A deliberate misleading and diverting of attention from the real issue.
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It seems implausible that people laid false 'fishy' trails in order to deceive hounds so that their prey would escape. After all, there was no hunt saboteur movement in 1686, and who would have a motive to do that? It's more likely that the use of red herrings was a training exercise, intended to put the hounds on the scent rather than to throw them off it. Nevertheless, the laying of a scent trail for dogs does establish the linguistic 'surrogate' meaning for 'red herring' and the further step to 'deliberate deceit' isn't a large one.
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There’s a proverb which dates from medieval times: "neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring", meaning in essence "neither one thing nor another"; "not fitting into any known category". The full sense of this now rather opaque saying is: "neither fresh fish for the clergy, nor meat for the mass of people, nor red herrings for the poor".

In the half dozen books on aspects of the history of fox hunting I have searched out, there is not one reference to the use of a red herring to lay a false scent.

About

"Red Herring" is a global media company which unites the world’s best high technology innovators, venture investors and business decision makers in a variety of forums: a leading innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters and major events for technology leaders around the globe. Red Herring provides an insider’s access to the global innovation economy, featuring unparalleled insights on the emerging technologies driving the economy.

Red herring

Red herring

red Herring

Referenzen:

• clue
• gimmick I: Dramaturgie
• gimmick II: Filmwerbung
• gimmick III: Ton-Gimmick
• MacGuffin
• roter Hering

roter Hering

engl.: red herring

Ein "roter Hering" ist ein Element der Handlung, das die Aufmerksamkeit des Zuschauers ablenken und seine Erwartungen in die falsche Richtung orientieren soll. Wenn es sich als falsche Fährte erweist, ist die Überraschung umso größer. Ein berühmtes Beispiel ist das Geldbündel in Hitchcocks Psycho (1960), das für die Protagonistin sowohl ein „neues Leben“ wie aber auch den „Bruch mit der bürgerlichen Existenz“ bedeutet und für den Zuschauer Anlass ist, auf Verwicklungen - Anzeige, Verfolgung, neuer Diebstahl etc. - zu schließen. Dass dieses Geldbündel, das in zahlreichen Akten der Hervorhebung und der Unterstreichung vorher exponiert worden ist, nach dem Mord an der Protagonistin ironischerweise gar nicht beachtet wird, in seiner narrativen Bedeutung also ganz heruntergesetzt wird, macht z.T. die Irritation aus, die von dem Film ausgeht.

• "kippered herring": salted and smoked herring
• "red herring": a dried and smoked herring having a reddish color

Red herring

Red herring

Red herring

red herring

Dave Wilton, Saturday, March 03, 2007

A "red herring" is a deliberate misdirection and the term comes from hunting. Poachers would interpose themselves between the prey and the hunting party and drag a red herring across the trail to mislead the dogs. This would give them the opportunity to bag the prey themselves. A red herring was chosen because dog trainers often used the pungent, smoked fish to create a trail when training their hounds. The dogs, upon encountering the herring scent, would follow that trail as it was the one they had been trained with.

This excerpt from Nicholas Cox’s 1686 The Gentleman’s Recreation describes the training practice:

The trailing or dragging of a dead Cat, or Fox, (and in case of necessity a Red-Herring) three or four miles...and then laying the Dogs on the scent.

Metaphorical use of red herring, however, doesn’t appear until the late 19th century. From the Liverpool Daily Post of 11 July 1884:

The talk of revolutionary dangers is a mere red-herring.

And this relatively early metaphorical use from the Spectator of 12 March 1890 makes the hunting allusion clear:

These red-herrings drawn across the path.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

"red herring" (red HER-ing) noun

A misleading clue; something used to divert attention from the real issue.

[From the former practice of drawing a smoked herring across the track to teach hounds not to be distracted from other scents.]
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The Lure of the Red Herring

WORLD WIDE WORDS - ISSUE 609 - Saturday 18 October 2008

3. Article: "red herring"

About 12 years ago, in the early days of World Wide Words, I wrote a puzzled piece about the origin of "red herring", something that distracts attention from the real issues. A study of the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, coupled with a little knowledge of fox hunting and some reading around the topic, made me wonder if the usual story about its origin was correct.

All the dictionaries and reference books I consulted argued that the metaphor grew up because a "red herring" was dragged along the ground to confuse a scent. In the 1997 edition of the Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Robert Hendrickson firmly asserts that "Escaping criminals in the 17th century would drag strong-smelling "red herring" across a trail to make pursuing blood-hounds lose the scent". Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and many dictionaries, say that "red herring"s were used to confuse the hounds chasing a fox. What is left unsaid is any clue to who was supposed to be laying this false trail, or why. Was an early group of hunt saboteurs at work? In the half dozen books on aspects of the history of fox hunting that I searched out, there was no reference to the use of a "red herring" to lay a false scent.

At the time I had to leave the topic without providing any answer. The matter is now cleared up as the result of a pair of articles in the October 2008 edition of Comments on Etymology, edited by Prof Gerald Cohen at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. One article reprints notes Prof Cohen made on the term in the same journal in 2000, the other is by Robert Scott Ross, who suggests a plausible origin for the expression. Their findings are supported by the Oxford English Dictionary's revised entry for "red herring", which is to appear online shortly.

Let's take a step back first, as I had to in the original article, to explain a literal "red herring". Before modern refrigeration and speedy transport, fish could not be got to customers more than a few miles inland before it went bad. Various methods were invented for preserving them, using salting, smoking or pickling. Kippers are that have been split, salted, dried and smoked. Yarmouth bloaters are made by a variation on kippering but are whole fish and do not keep so well. Arbroath smokies are smoked haddock. Red herrings are a type of kipper that have been much more heavily smoked, for up to 10 days, until they have been part-cooked and have gone a reddish-brown colour. They also have a strong smell. They would keep for months (they were transported in barrels to provide protein on long sea voyages) but in this state they were inedible and had to be soaked to soften them and remove the salt before they could be heated and served.

The first reference to them in English is from around 1420, though the technique is older than that. Within a century, they had been immortalised in the expression "neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring" (later, "fowl" was added or replaced "flesh"), meaning something that was nondescript or neither one thing nor another. The original form of this now rather opaque saying was: "neither fresh fish for the clergy, nor meat for the mass of people, nor red herrings for the poor". Not only the poor: prosperous households at times ate them on Fridays and other meatless days and during Lent.

The OED's current entry for "red herring" in the figurative sense points to a reference in Nicholas Cox's The Gentleman's Recreation around 1697 (Mr Ross says it was actually in a treatise by Gerland Langbaine on horsemanship that was bound into the third edition of this work without attribution) that seemed to suggest hounds were trained to follow a scent by trailing a "red herring" on the ground. This was a misunderstanding, as Langbaine included it in a section on training horses so that they became accustomed to following the hounds amid the noise and bustle of a fox hunt. He suggested a dead cat or fox should be dragged as a training-scent for the hounds, so that the horses could follow them. If you had no acceptably ripe dead animals handy, he added, you could as a last resort use a red herring. Neither the original misunderstanding of the text or the correction suggests why "red herrings" might be thought of as laying a false scent to draw hounds off a trail, quite the reverse.

Robert Scott Ross and the OED now trace the figurative sense to the radical journalist William Cobbett, whose Weekly Political Register thundered in the years 1803-35 against the English political system he denigrated as the Old Corruption. He wrote a story, presumably fictional, in the issue of 14 February 1807 about how as a boy he had used a "red herring" as a decoy to deflect hounds chasing after a hare. He used the story as a metaphor to decry the press, which had allowed itself to be misled by false information about a supposed defeat of Napoleon; this caused them to take their attention off more important domestic matters: "It was a mere transitory effect of the political red-herring; for, on the Saturday, the scent became as cold as a stone."

This story, and his extended repetition of it in 1833, was enough to get the figurative sense of "red herring" into the minds of his readers, unfortunately also with the false idea that it came from some real practice of huntsmen. This was reinforced by the belief of Cobbett's son that the origin was correct; he included it in a commentary on an edition of his father's Rural Rides in 1853.

This does nothing to alter the sense of "red herring", of course: it's been for too long a fixed part of our vocabulary for it to change. But at least we now know its origin. Another obscure etymology has been nailed down.

Red herring

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Because the scent was so strong and familiar to the dogs, farmers were wont to drag a red herring around their fields to divert the howling hounds and stamping steeds of the fox hunt away from their crops.
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Red Herring Examples

Stalking
Cyber Stalking
Cyber-Stalking (W3)

• dt. "jagend" = engl. "stalking"
• dt. "Pirschjagd" = engl. "stalking"
• dt. "sich anschleichend" = engl. "stalking"
• dt. "sich heranschleichend" = engl. "stalking"
• dt. "Verfolgen" = engl. "stalking"

Stalking: Wie sich Opfer schützen können

Auflauern vor der Wohnung, unzählige Anrufe bis hin zu Übergriffen: Stalking belastet die Opfer erheblich. Wer sind die Täter? Und was schreckt sie ab?
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California Night-stalking Tiger Beetle (4)

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Erwähnenswert wäre die Etymologie des Wortes "Stalking", das aus der Jägersprache kommt und "Anpirschen" bedeutet.
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Silk Stalkings

Etymologie: "Stalking" = nhd. "nachstellende Belästigung"
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Stalking the Mother Forest: Voices Beneath the Canopy
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"Coasting Stalking": "a cypher you have memorized"

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Der Begriff Stalking stammt ursprünglich aus der englischen Jagdsprache (engl. to stalk) und bedeutet so viel wie "sich anpirschen", "anschleichen" - denn ähnlich wie ein Jäger stellen die Stalker ihren Opfern nach.
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Ausgehend von den USA wird das Phänomen Stalking seit den 1990er Jahren zunehmend zum Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Forschung gemacht.
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cyberstalking

aim stalking | b stalking

alphabetical

| stalk | Stalkabator | stalkability | stalkable | Stalkafacebookatism | stalkah | stalkaholic | Stalkalicious | Stalkaliscious | stalkalysis | stalkam | stalkapedia | Stalkaphile | Stalkarazzi | Stalkario | stalkative | Stalkavation | stalk beater | stalkblock | stalk-block | Stalk Block | stalkblocked | stalk-blocking | Stalkblocking | stalk blogging | stalkbook | Stalkbooker | stalk booking | Stalkbooking | stalkbot | Stalk Box | stalk by | stalk call | stalk-contact | stalk dialing | Stalked | stalked by | stalkee | stalk-ee | Stalkeerer | stalkenator | stalker | S.T.A.L.K.E.R. | Stalker Account | stalkerade | Stalker Alert | stalkeratzi | stalkerazi | stalkerazzi | Stalkerbio | stalkerbitch | stalkerbook | Stalker booty call | Stalker Box | stalker boy | Stalker Boys | stalker button | stalker calendar | Stalker Candy | Stalker Check | stalkercore | Stalker Creeper | Stalker Crush | stalkerdoodle | Stalkered | Stalkerella | stalker enabler | stalkeresque | stalkerette | Stalker Eye | stalker face | Stalkerfack | stalker fail | Stalker-fake | stalker fart | stalker feed | stalker-feed | Stalkerfeed | Stalkerferdelious | stalkerfication | Stalker File | stalkerfriend | Stalker Friend Syndrome | stalker fucking | Stalker Girls | stalkergitis | stalker guilt syndrome | stalkeriffic | Stalkerific | Stalkering | stalkerish | stalker-ish | Stalkerism | stalker-itude | Stalkerizing | stalker level | Stalkerlicious | stalker light | stalker Like | Stalker Look | stalker love | stalkerly | Stalker Mcfinnigan | Stalker Memory | Stalker Mode | stalker mom | stalkernet | stalkernoculars | Stalker Numbers | stalkerocity | Stalker parking | Stalker Pause | Stalker Pretty | stalker rage | stalkerrazzi | Stalker Report | stalkerrific | Stalkers | S.T.A.L.K.E.R.S | Stalker Sarah | Stalkersauras | Stalker's Christmas | stalker screenname | stalkership | stalker skank | Stalker Smile | Stalker Song | stalkerspace | Stalker's Paradise | stalker speed | Stalker squad | Stalkerstache | Stalker Status | Stalker Stunt | Stalker Talkers | Stalker Talking | stalker teacher | Stalker Techniques | Stalker Texas Ranger | Stalkertise | stalkertivity | stalkertunity | stalker vagabond hermit | Stalkerville | Stalker Walk | stalkerwalker | Stalkerware | stalkerwave | stalker whore | stalkery | Stalkette | Stalkey | stalkfap | stalk - flattered | stalk-hater | stalkholming | Stalkholm Syndrome | Stalk-home syndrome | Stalkie | Stalkie Talkie | Stalkify | Stalkiness | stalking | (s)talking | Stalkingabilities | stalking cap | stalking horse | stalking-horse bid | stalking mangina | Stalking My Chemical Romance | stalking my cock | stalking my life on the boardwalk | stalking stuffer | stalking the book | stalking the neighborhood | stalking to | stalking your clock | stalkish | stalkisher | stalkistics | Stalkitude | stalk mauler | stalkniscient | stalknocker | stalk-off | stalkola | Stalkology | Stalk on | Stalkophile | stalk options | stalkording | stalk out | stalkr | stalkrastination | Stalk Saturday | Stalk Slip | Stalkspace | stalk stack | Stalk Stare | Stalkster | Stalk Talking | stalktard | Stalktastic | stalk-texting | stalk the ground | stalk the traffic light | Stalk Ticker | Stalk train | Stalkumentary | Stalkvertizing | Stalkwalk | Stalkward | Stalk Whore | Stalkworthy | StalkYaLater | Stalky Creeper | Stalk you later | Stalkz | stalkzor

| Anti-Stalking-Gesetz | Cyber-Stalking

stalking horse (W3)

stalking horse
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In politics a stalking-horse is a sham (Schein-)candidate put forward to conceal the candidacy of another or to divide the opposition.
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stalking-horse (W3)

Stalking-Horse Bid