Red herring
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A red herring, also refered to as a kipper, is a dried, smoked, herring. The curing process turns the fish red.
The phrase red herring has a number of metaphorical senses that share the general sense of something being a diversion from the original objective:
- a type of logical fallacy in which one purports to prove one's point by means of irrelevant arguments. See Ignoratio elenchi.
- in detective work, mystery fiction, and puzzle-solving, a false clue which leads investigators, readers, or solvers towards an incorrect solution
- in politics, a minor or even phony issue trumped up as being of great importance, in order to influence voters to vote for one party or candidate and against the other, or distract from more important issues that might help the opposing party.
- in literature, a plot device intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending
- in adventure games, an item or object of no practical use; its purpose may be to frustrate the ignorant gamer who tries to find the intended use for it. Famous examples are the chainsaw of Maniac Mansion and the actual red herring (although this fish proved useful...) in the original Monkey Island game. Some red herrings exist because some secondary plots or puzzles that existed in drafts were removed from the latest version of the games, but some of the items relevant to those puzzles were forgotten and made their way into the game.
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.
Other
- in finance, a preliminary prospectus for an offering of stock, so called for the notice in red type required by law at the top of the front page
- a brief for venture capitalists to tempt them into following up with investment in the business plan
- Red Herring, a business magazine founded in the dot-com boom of the 1990s, when venture capitalists and business plans abounded.
- in Tasmania it is a brand of Surfgear
- "Red Herring" Is an artists collective based in Brighton on the south coast of England founded in 1984, seen as one of the pioneers of the establishment of artist run studio organisations in Great Britain