neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring
- idiom
- Archaic
:
ni carne ni pescado
- His explanation was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring—it didn't help clarify the issue at all.
Examples
-
Critics said the novel was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, lacking a clear genre or focus.
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The new policy was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, leaving everyone confused about its purpose.
-
The proposal was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring for the committee.
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Why is this issue neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring?
-
The report was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, as it failed to provide any useful information.
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Her argument was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring and did nothing to support her case.
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In the meeting, his comments were neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, leaving us more puzzled than before.
Synonyms
226
5.1
Having no meaning, value, or purpose
10
7.9
Unclear and hard to picture or describe
2
6.7
Not important to the main point
1
8.1
Not clearly one thing or another so people cannot decide what it is
Antonyms
How Clear
∞
1.0
207
3.9
- Archaic
68
6.3
1
8.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
neither + fish, + flesh, + nor + good + red + herring
The negative coordination 'neither ... nor ...' plus the literal nouns 'fish' and 'flesh' allows a learner to infer a basic meaning of 'not one thing or the other', so part of the expression is compositionally clear. However, the clause 'good red herring' invokes the idiomatic concept 'red herring' (and the whole proverb is somewhat archaic and metaphorical), so the precise sense of 'ambiguous, indefinite, or irrelevant' cannot be fully predicted from the constituents alone.
Etymology
Neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring gives a simple picture: it is not fish, not flesh, a word for meat, and not even a good red herring, which was a smoked fish often seen as poor or used to distract. So people used the phrase to call something useless or 'not clearly in any group', and today it means 'unclear' or 'irrelevant'.