Encyclopedia > Red herring

Article Content

Red herring

A red herring is variously:

a dried, smoked, herring. The curing process turns the fish red.
a false lead, or misleading piece of information intended to divert attention from the real issue (based, according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, on dragging the smoked fish across a trail to confuse hunting dogs)
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.

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!

Featured Article

Sanskrit language

... Phonology and writing system Sanskrit is typically said to have 36 sounds, though there is some debate over whether certain sounds are separate phonemes or allophones ...