red herring

noun

Etymology: (figurative): One possible origin of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This was true, but the modern meaning of a false trail may have been popularized in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon. The OED has another possible earlier origin in the legacy of clergyman Jasper Mayne in 1672 when he misled a servant by leaving him "Somewhat that would make him Drink after his Death" in a large trunk. When the trunk was opened, the contents were found to be red herring. (soldier): An allusion to soldiers' red uniforms; soldier is, reciprocally, a slang term for the fish.

1. A herring that is cured in smoke and brine strong enough to turn the flesh red; a type of kipper.

   “Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before.”

   “‘Mamma,’ said Rosamond, ‘when Fred comes down I wish you would not let him have red herrings. I cannot bear the smell of them all over the house at this hour of the morning.’”

2. A clue, information, argument, etc. that is or is intended to be misleading, diverting attention from the real answer or issue.

   “Caroline visibly wavered for a second or two, much as a roulette ball might coyly hover between two numbers. Then she declined the tempting red herring.”

   “By its thirtieth episode, the show [Twin Peaks] had degenerated into tics and shticks and mannerisms and red herrings, and part of the explanation for this was that [David] Lynch was trying to divert our attention from the fact that he really had no idea how to wrap the central murder case up.”

3. A red herring prospectus.
4. A soldier.

   ““Devil a bit, Ma’am,” said the Major. “We couldn’t afford it. Unless the world was peopled with J.B.’s—tough and blunt old Joes, Ma’am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir—we couldn’t afford it. It wouldn’t do.””