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The idiom “barking up the wrong tree” means making a mistake or misjudgment. It comes from hunting dogs barking at the wrong tree when they have cornered prey. The phrase has been used since the early 1800s and is now used to describe any misguided research or misjudgment. It can also be used to indicate that someone is looking in the wrong place. The phrase is still popular today.
The English idiom “barking up the wrong tree” refers to someone who is making a mistake, misjudging something, or looking for something in the wrong place. This idiom is based on a physical metaphor, something many English-speaking experts refer to as personification. In this case, a human being who is looking for something is allegorically compared to a hunting dog.
When hounds are on the hunt for prey, they often corner it in a tree. The dog barks or barks and stands under the tree in a way that indicates where the prey is. If the hunting dog gets it wrong, this effort will ultimately fail. This is the activity that has led to the popular use of the idiom “barking up the wrong tree”.
Many examples of this phrase can be found in literature from the early 1800s. While this may have been primarily an oral phrase, something said from one person to another in the vernacular, it eventually found its way into magazines and other publications . The phrase has become a popular way to describe any kind of misguided research or misjudgment of a situation.
Although the phrase “barking up the wrong tree” is based on a visual metaphor, English speakers have used it in the decades since to describe very intangible or abstract situations. For example, if someone is speaking to a board of directors for a company and claims that he is “barking up the wrong tree” for funding, he is trying to illustrate how fundraising activities are poorly targeted or unlikely to be successful. . This kind of situation is not directly related to the original meaning of the idiom.
Other English speakers may use the phrase more directly. If someone says to someone else “you came to me for money, but you are barking up the wrong tree” this response may be a conversational way of pointing out that the source is incorrect, that the “tree” where the person is looking will not give what that person is looking for.
Alternatives include more direct phrases, such as “you’re looking in the wrong place.” The “colourful” phrasing of the hunting allegory has attracted many English speakers over the years, and even as food culture changes, this idiom shows little sign of falling out of use.
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