Where does the phrase “red herring” come from?

Question

I understand that "red herring" means something like a clue or indicator that is misleading. But where does this come from? What does a misleading clue have to do with smoked fish?

Answer 1

There is a nice explanation on ask.yahoo.

British fugitives in the 1800s would rub a herring across their trail, thereby diverting the bloodhounds that were hot in pursuit. In the 1920s, American investment bankers started calling preliminary prospectuses "red herrings" as a warning to investors that the documents were not complete or final and could be misleading.

Edit: Also there's this wiktionary entry

It originated from 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.

Answer 2

In his book, Salt: A World History, Mark Kurlansky says of New Englanders,

They also ate a great deal of salted herring, though they seem to have preferred lightly salted and smoked red herring, perhaps because of their limited salt supply. When these early settlers hunted, they would leave red herring along their trail because the strong smell would confuse wolves, [italics mine] which is the origin of the expression red herring, meaning "a false trail."

Let's look at three things mentioned above, namely: salt, fish and wolves. The early settlers were resolutely concerned with fishing and the production of salt. In Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation we have an early letter to the Settlers at New Plymouth from Robert Cushman of England, who says,

We have now sent you, we hope, men and a means to accomplish three things, viz., fishing, salt-making, and boat-making: if you can master them your wants will be supplied. I pray you exert yourselves to do so.

These things were requested by Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. In Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, we have an account of just how prevalent the wolves were near Plymouth, and their apparent fearlessness,

...John Goodman went abroad to use his lame feet, that were pitifully ill with the cold he had got, having a little spaniel with him. A little way from the plantation two great wolves ran after the dog; the dog ran to him and betwixt his legs for succor. He had nothing in his hand but took up a stick, and threw at one of them and hit him, and they presently ran both away, but came again; he got a pale-board [fence-stave] in his hand, and they sat both on their tails, grinning at him a good while, and went their way and left him.

Unfortunately, Kurlansky does not cite a reference to his etymology of the phrase. Nor do John Smith's Description of New England, Rev. Francis Higginson's New England's Plantation, William Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, nor Mourt's Relation, all of which Kurlansky refers to, mention herring (or any other fish) in relation to wolves. That said, Kurlansky's etymology, in context, is simply a passing curiosity. And I find it at least plausible with the dearth of another suitable explanation.

Answer 3

Philoto didn't mention the following quote from Wiktionary.com, which is important:

Until 2008, the accepted etymology of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This has proven to be a false etymology.

This is backed by a study by Michael Quinon, which can be read here

The OED’s current entry for the figurative sense of red herring points to a reference in Nicholas Cox’s The Gentleman’s Recreation of around 1697 (Mr Ross says it was actually in a treatise by Gerland Langbaine on horsemanship...) that appeared to suggest that hounds were trained to follow a scent by trailing a red herring on the ground. This was a misunderstanding, as Langbaine included it in a section on training horses so that they became accustomed to following the hounds amid the noise and bustle of a fox hunt.

Later on, journalist William Cobbett

wrote a story, presumably fictional, in the issue of 14 February 1807 about how as a boy he had used a red herring as a decoy to deflect hounds chasing after a hare. He used the story as a metaphor to decry the press, which had allowed itself to be misled by false information about a supposed defeat of Napoleon;

Also, this was busted in an episode of MythBusters on Discovery channel. When the red herring was used as a scent, the hound stopped and ate the fish, but eventually went back on pursuit and located the fugitive.

Answer 4

OP's question puts me in mind of Neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring, which doesn't normally have anything to do with comestibles at all. It mostly just means not easily defined, and it's most commonly applied to people or opinions, not things which you might eat, or lay false trails with.

So far as I can tell, red herring has been a standard term since the year dot, when it originally meant exactly that (a smoked fish, red by virtue of the smoking treatment).

In the 1750's it began to be used figuratively to mean a meagre amount of humble food. Only much later was it used to mean a decoy.

The oft-repeated explanation of red herrings being used to deflect hounds sounds a little fanciful to me. Who would both happen to have a red herring around at the time, and wish to deflect the hounds? It sounds to me like an old-time American politician's attempt to sound 'folksy' by coming out with a neologism that would sound traditional, but be comprehensible on first hearing. On a par with out on a limb.