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Today's word seemed relevant to the interests of my fellow mystery readers - so I thought I'd share...
MacGuffin
http://www.wordnik.com/words/MacGuffin
(noun) A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.
While the origin of 'MacGuffin' is obscure, the first recorded usage was in a lecture given by Alfred Hitchcock at Columbia University in 1939. A 'red herring' differs in that it purposely draws attention away from the central issue.
Example:
"But the microfilm that the bad guys are smuggling out of the country — that's just what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin, the pretense for the movie, the silly excuse upon which he pinned his real story: a man is mistaken for another man and nearly murdered because of this mistake."
--The Mother of All Horror Films, Newsweek, January 6, 2010
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