October 18, 2008, 04:58
zmježdred herring redux
Michael Quinion has a lovely article on the origins of the phrase
red herring.
quote:
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.(
link).
October 21, 2008, 20:35
KallehVery interesting, z. When I read about etymologic misunderstandings like this, I always wonder how many more there are. I assume this will be corrected in the OED.
I had no idea it was related to the expression
neither fish nor fowl, which apparently evolved from
neither fresh fish for the clergy, nor meat for the mass of people, nor red herrings for the poor to
neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring (later, fowl was added or replaced flesh).
October 26, 2008, 10:20
<Asa Lovejoy>I'm surprised that the smoking of the herring had nothing to do with it, since heavy smoke disguises vision.