The surprising origin of the term red herring
In short: While we use the phrase to describe a distraction or false trail, the expression's history is more complex than it seems. This video explores how a rust-colored fish became a metaphor for misleading information.
The term 'red herring' has been used for roughly the last two hundred years to denote a distraction or a false trail. While the expression is indeed rooted in the history of a rust-colored fish, the widely accepted explanations for its origin were actually a false trail themselves until quite recently.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: How the Phrase Red Herring Came to Mean Something That is Misleading
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