I totally don't understand this sentence

For no extra charge, there's a bad love story (DiCaprio and Connelly give off the sexual tension of pickled herring)


I know "give off the sexual tension" but what is pickled herring? does herring stinky or what?

Well, I think the idea is that pickled herring is particularly unarousing. I don't really know what it is (a herring is a fish, and I only have a vague idea of what pickling is -- it has to do with submerging something in a particular kind of liquid), but it's clear from the context that we're talking about something that would probably kill your libido rather than excite it.

But I think the writer chose a poor analogy, because tension (in this sense, at least) can only exist between two things or two people. Pickled herring is just one thing, so it doesn't work -- at least, not the way it's worded. It could theoretically work as, "There is as much sexual tension between DiCaprio and Conelly as there is between me and a pickled herring," but it still sounds odd that way because one wouldn't expect a person and an item of food, no matter how good or bad, to have sexual tension in the first place. Unless we're talking about chocolate. Then it might make sense. ;)

- Kef

A pickled herring is a small fish that is sold as canned for, I think.....

A pickled herring has no sexual tension. That's the idea behind the statement.

Here's another one:

About as much sexual tension as a nativity play.

<< A pickled herring has no sexual tension. That's the idea behind the statement. >>

Right, that is the idea, but I still think the analogy is nonsensical. Let's break it down to its basic form.

"A and B give off as much sexual tension as C."

I would interpret this equivalently to:

"A and B have as much sexual tension between them as C."

This has the form of:

"A is to B as C is to......"

Now the problem is obvious. The analogy is incomplete.

The structure is not parallel. Here we're clearly starting the analogy by talking about tension between two things. But there is nothing that C may or may not have sexual tension against. At first we're describing a relationship between A and B, and then we're describing a relationship between C and what, exactly? It doesn't matter what C is; the structure does not work.

This structure solves the problem:

"A and B give off as much sexual tension as C and D."

- Kef

Pickling usually involves marinating something in brine -- a salt solution. Sometimes vinegar is involved, too.