The word sextet has nothing to do with sex, unless of course, the six people
in question engage in some questionable calisthenics. That's what the English
language does--often leading us on only to make things limpid in the end.
There we go again. Take the word friable, for instance. All evidence leads
us to suggest this word could be used to refer to raw potato chips. But in
truth, something friable is that which could be easily crumbled. Well, it
could be used to refer to potato chips, after all. This week's AWAD visits
these red-herring words, words with meanings that are not the first things
that come to mind.

Red herring is a very old figure of speech. I remember reading that it was originally referred to an alleged scheme to confuse dogs on the trail of a criminal by dragging a red herring across the trail to divert the dogs.I never heard any explanation why the herring should be red.

I found one URL giving some examples.

http:// www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html

Here's Dr. Bill's link without the offending space:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html