A red herring is distracting

June 30, 2020

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originally posted Dec 23, 2019

Fun With Words

All of the info comes from the book The Weird World of Words by Mitchell Symons.

Word of the day: Gambrinous – the state of being full of beer

A word that changed its meaning over time: Artificial – originally meaning ‘full of artistic skill’

RED HERRING

A red herring is something of an irrelevance, something to distract attention from important matters.

“In the 19th century, a red herring was another name for smoked herring or kipper. During a hunt, if someone wanted to distract the hounds from following the scent of an animal, they would put down a kipper (red herring).” This would work extremely well, in fact, when training, the huntsman would use red herring so their dogs would learn to ignore the stronger smell.

It’s not hard to see how the term would be used to describe the “laying of false claims”.

Did you know…?

• Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll invented the word chortle – a combination of chuckle and snort.
• The word freelance comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire.
• Afghanistan, Kirghistan and Tuvalu are the only countries with three consecutive letters in their names.

Newspaper Headline: Police Discover Crack In Australia

“Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.” ~ Theodore Dreiser

to see what photos/art I have available, click on any link below…

pixels
picfair (food)
shutterstock
pinterest (Holly’s Photos)

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