Red herrings and purple patches--definitions for AP Lang

Red herring--it's a fallacy in which the speaker attempts to divert the audience's attention by introducing a new unrelated argument.  Here's a good website: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html

Purple patch--(noun) A period of excellent performance, where nearly everything seems to go right, work properly, and contrasting with a more general lower level of performance.

(ex.  The England team hit a just after half-time, where they scored 3 goals in 10 minutes, but in the end they were lucky to escape with a 3-3 draw.)

2.  An ornate or elaborate section of a written work, a patch of purple prose