Most often, the term red herring is used to refer to a 'false clue'a piece of evidence that misleads readers to believe that a crime (or other action) was committed by someone other than the actual culprit. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'red herring.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. A red herring is a piece of information in a story that distracts readers from an important truth, or leads them to mistakenly expect a particular outcome. 2022 But Sussmann and the researchers called this a red herring. confusion resulting from failure to understand.
the activity of obscuring peoples understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered. Todd Spangler, Variety, 14 July 2022 His focus may be a red herring, as there’s been no violence thus far against Ohio centers.Ĭleveland, 28 June 2022 What if voters were faced with an eleventh-hour red herring, another disaster like the James Comey letter? darkening or obscuring the sight of something. Shirley Leung,, 18 July 2022 Twitter, in its lawsuit, says the spam/bot issue is a red herring and that Musk is backing out because the stock market decline has made the deal more expensive for him personally. Joshua Cohen, Forbes, 2 June 2022 Even Mary’s backstory is left as a tantalizing red herring.Ĭlea Simon,, Doctors and reproductive rights advocates will tell you the issue of Down syndrome is a red herring. This fallacy consists in diverting attention from the real issue by focusing instead on an issue having only a surface relevance to the first. Nicole Acheampong, The Atlantic, 8 July 2022 Here, Cruz and others resort to a red herring to deflect attention from their main concern abortions of any kind and at any time during a pregnancy.
Recent Examples on the Web But Greif’s initial praise is more than a red herring. A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue.