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Chris -- 2018-04-11
A “red herring†was one that had been split, salted, dried and then smoked till it had a reddish tinge. Today, the expression “a red herring†usually means something like “a line of argument that takes attention away from the most significant issue.†Michael Quinion has a great article on the origins of the phrase; it’s here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm. In brief, the idiom comes from a probably fictional story of a young boy who used the scent of a red herring to mislead hounds tracking a hare; the tale was brewed up as a kind of parable to illustrate more or less the concept that the phrase usually refers to now.
I can’t speak for Britons, but I doubt most Americans have a clue what a red herring is, so these fish are ripe for reshaping. I’ve put this down here in “Slips†because I don’t see a strong eggcornical argument for “red heron.†But I do think that it makes a bit of sense – I find herons rather more attractive than herrings, and my own attention would more easily be distracted by the bird than the fish. Examples:
A RED HERON IS A MISLEADING STORY.
http://community.manutd.com/forums/t/11654.aspx
[This was the writer’s explanation for the phrase “red heron†when other posters in the same thread tried to tell him the standard version was “red herring.â€]
Because of the way the application was submitted and the review process took place, Livsey felt that the Ordinance is not necessarily irrelevant but thinks the timing issue is more of a red heron than an actual issue.
http://www.townofalta.com/docs/minSep309.pdf
The argument about muzzling dogs in public is a red heron because the majority of dog bites happen on private property.
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/8101760 … _doberman/
The other problem I have seen is that Thimerosal is a bit of a red heron.
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm … routinely/
To throw a red heron up and call for the whole American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan be trashed because it seeks to limit the options of treatment for certain medical problems fails totake into consideration that the current Health System of HMOs and Medicare already use such a program.
http://www.watchblog.com/republicans/ar … 06428.html
I’ve noticed that people occasionally use the phrase “red herring†to mean “something that doesn’t fit in with everything around it.†For those speakers, I think the odd color of the herring in the idiom becomes the focus of its meaning. And this carries on over to the “red heron†version as well:
A lot of favorites in here, a couple tracks that are new to me and of course there seems to always be a red heron, in this case the jewel akens track, doesn’t totally jive with the rest of the batch but doesn’t stink up the joint. a good track but maybe would fit in better in another mix, kind of like spaghetti sauce on cereal.
http://musicalepisode.podomatic.com/
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The semantic weight, if such there be, may reside in the color. The Heron known to most North Americans is the (Great) Blue Heron. Our cousins in the other hemisphere have the Grey Heron. In the Caribbean is a subspecies of the Blue Heron called the Great White Heron. There is, as far as I know, no Red Heron (unless he was the one who put the holes in Snoopy’s doghouse). So a “red heron” may be an attempt to mislead the hearer by mentioning a fictional bird.
Last edited by kem (2010-07-08 18:05:34)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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So a “red heron†may be an attempt to mislead the hearer by mentioning a fictional bird.
I didn’t provide a hit count for “a red heron” because there were so many hits that were clearly referring to actual birds. You’re right of course that there’s no bird that’s officially called the Red Heron. But that doesn’t stop lots and lots of people from using it as a bird name—often capitalized as “Red Heron” in the midst of lowercase prose, indicating that the speaker thinks of it as a species name. And plenty of those birds captioned “Red Heron” on Flickr and other photography sites really do look quite red, so it’s easy to see why Red Heron has become a “popular” name for the Blue Heron. I suspect it’s a very real bird for thousands of people.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-07-08 20:32:41)
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There is a reddish egret, and since I’ve never been able to figure out why some are called egrets and others herons, I think it’s reasonable for someone to call it a red heron. The little blue heron turns purple around the head when it’s breeding, which could also be called red in some lights.
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