Off topic: do you know the origin of a "red herring"? Thread poster: RHELLER
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RHELLER
United States
Local time: 01:23
French to English
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| NancyLynn
Canada
Local time: 03:23
Member (2002)
French to English
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MODERATOR | I enjoyed it, Rita :-) | Jan 23, 2005 |
And although I knew the origin of the red herring and other tings red in the article, the link to 'pessimism' leads to an article about Murphy's law, whose origin I did not know, and I was surprised to learn it dates only to 1949.
Nancy
| | | | RHELLER
United States
Local time: 01:23
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | I hope the instructions weren't translated :-) | Jan 23, 2005 |
just joking!
"Now it so happened that there were two ways in which each sensor could be attached and one of the technicians somehow managed to install all 16 the wrong way around."
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-23-2004-50883.asp
there are some funny examples on the following page
| | | | Bruce Popp 
United States
Local time: 00:23
French to English
| Murphy was an optimist | Jan 23, 2005 |
Hi,
Murphy's exhortation was to find all the ways that something could possibly go wrong, and prevent them from happening.
This is of course impossible, which is why he was an optimist.
Donald Rumsfeld got 15 minutes of fame recently for saying that "there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns." This is, a serious engineering truth. Known unknowns are things like noise. You know that it will be there, but the details are unknown -- it is noise after al... See more Hi,
Murphy's exhortation was to find all the ways that something could possibly go wrong, and prevent them from happening.
This is of course impossible, which is why he was an optimist.
Donald Rumsfeld got 15 minutes of fame recently for saying that "there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns." This is, a serious engineering truth. Known unknowns are things like noise. You know that it will be there, but the details are unknown -- it is noise after all. Unknown unknowns on the other hand are totally unexpected. Goedel's Completeness Theorem assures that they will be there, no matter what Murphy tries to do to find them.
And the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns are exactly why Murphy can't possibly find all the things that could go wrong.
Bruce ▲ Collapse
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| a literal anwer | Jan 23, 2005 |
I know the origins of the expression "red herring": in Scotland the traditional way to smoke fish is by hanging the fish in small huts, with a slow fire under them. The fish (different types) is hung on metal hooks and a small fire with different aromatic woods is slowly let to burn underneath; when the fish falls to the ground, is ready for eating. "The red herring" (a type of fish)is the first to fall to the ground as it cooks faster than the other types: this way when the fisherman sees a red... See more I know the origins of the expression "red herring": in Scotland the traditional way to smoke fish is by hanging the fish in small huts, with a slow fire under them. The fish (different types) is hung on metal hooks and a small fire with different aromatic woods is slowly let to burn underneath; when the fish falls to the ground, is ready for eating. "The red herring" (a type of fish)is the first to fall to the ground as it cooks faster than the other types: this way when the fisherman sees a red herring he thinks that all the fish is smoked and ready, when in fact it's not true. It may sound boring, but this is the oigin of the expression, as reported by a BBC documentary some time ago. ▲ Collapse
| | | | RHELLER
United States
Local time: 01:23
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | here is a slightly different version | Jan 24, 2005 |
"Red herring" first appeared in the literal "smoked fish" sense around 1420, but the figurative "phony issue or false clue" sense didn't appear until around 1884.
http://www.word-detective.com/042601.html
| | | | Laura Vinti
United States
Local time: 03:23
German to Italian
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Thank you Rita for sharing this.
I found the Word Detective site interesting and entertaining and bookmarked it - Thanks!
| | | | | Logical fallacy.. | Jan 24, 2005 |
The name of this fallacy comes from the sport of fox hunting in which a dried, smoked herring, which is red in color, is dragged across the trail of the fox to throw the hounds off the scent. Thus, a "red herring" argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question through the introduction of some irrelevancy. This frequently occurs during debates when there is an at least implicit topic, yet it is easy to lose track of it. By extension, it applies to any argument in which the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.
In Philosophy, also known as Ignoratio Elenchi ("ignorance of refutation")
Cheers Rita!
Giovanna
[Edited at 2005-01-24 11:51]
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