[Vocabulary] Help with understanding

[Alex Rover]

Hi, everyone!
I apologize if there are any errors in the description, my English is not perfect yet.
I'm reading the book now and I have some problems with understanding:

"Four circular dials on the four corners of the case lid rotated ninety degrees, indicating that the case was sealed tighter than a proverbial drum."​

I know that "proverbial" means well-known, something that everyone knows, but I still can't figure out what it means in the sentence. Could you give an explanation, or write a synonym?

"If your friends had been a little more thorough, they would have seen straight through that false ID. Then all the red flags would've gone off: Quantico, VICAP, NSA, all the rest."​

I assumed that "red flags" means as a resistance movement, but given that "Quantico, VICAP, NSA" are government organizations that should not have any resistance, I don't know what the correct meaning is, and generally can't understand the sentence.
I tried to find answers among the idioms, but I didn't find anything useful. Help me figure it out.
Thank you!

 

[emsr2d2]

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Before we continue, please provide the source and author of the quote. Saying "I'm reading a book" isn't enough.

 

[Alex Rover]

Hello! Oi. Thank you.
Novelization by Keith R.A. DeCandido
"Resident Evil: GENESIS"

 

[emsr2d2]

Oi.

What does that mean?

 

[Alex Rover]

An interjection that means unexpected. :lol:

 

[emsr2d2]

It doesn't mean that. It's an impolite way of getting someone's attention. You might hear someone rudely shout "Oy! You! I want a word with you!" It can be used to express annoyance. "Oy! Don't do that! It's really annoying!"

 

[Alexey86]

An interjection that means unexpected. :lol:

English interjections are different in spelling and pronunciation from Russian ones. Russian "oi" in this context is close to English "oops."

https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/interjections/

 

[Alex Rover]

emsr2d2, Alexey86
Thanks! I will definitely take this into account.

Piscean
Thanks for the detailed answer, now I have begun to understand the meaning of comparison.

____________________________________________________________________________
After sitting with the dictionary, I began to think more that "red flags" means alarms (warnings) about what danger this person represents (the hero of the story) by getting information about him in the specified government organizations.

 

[GoesStation]

English interjections are different in spelling and pronunciation from Russian ones. Russian "oi" in this context is close to English "oops."

https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/interjections/

We spell that interjection oy in American English. It's common among American Jews as an expression of surprise or concern. It's not unknown in the wider American community but not common.

Americans don't use it in the British sense.

 

[Tarheel]

It's Yiddish. Americans have borrowed quite a few words from that language.

Hopefully, I won't get Alex and Alexy confused much.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

A red flag is a warning signal.

Tighter than a drum is a cliche. And for some of us - editors and would-be-editors - a cliche is a red flag. It warns us that we're reading bad writing.

So to address complaints about the use of a cliche, the writer added proverbial. It says: "Yes, I know it's a cliche, but it's a darn good one and it fits."

Unfortunately, putting proverbial before a cliche is, itself, a cliche. So instead of getting rid of a red flag, the writer has added one.

 

[jutfrank]

A red flag is a warning signal.

Yes.

Tighter than a drum is a cliche. And for some of us - editors and would-be-editors - a cliche is a red flag. It warns us that we're reading bad writing.

So to address complaints about the use of a cliche, the writer added proverbial. It says: "Yes, I know it's a cliche, but it's a darn good one and it fits."

Unfortunately, putting proverbial before a cliche is, itself, a cliche. So instead of getting rid of a red flag, the writer has added one.

Hmm. I don't think I agree it's a cliche. (Perhaps we have slightly differing ideas of what a cliche is.) I'd describe tighter than a drum as an 'idiom of analogy'.

You're right of course that the use of proverbial here is a way for the writer to refer to his own use of this idiomatic analogy.

 

[SoothingDave]

I would expect "oy vey" as the Yiddish expression.

The British "oi!" is like our "hey!"

And a "red flag" is a warning. An alarm.

 

[GoesStation]

I would expect "oy vey" as the Yiddish expression.

That's possible, too, but just "oy" is a lot more common.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It doesn't mean that. It's an impolite way of getting someone's attention. You might hear someone rudely shout "Oy! You! I want a word with you!" It can be used to express annoyance. "Oy! Don't do that! It's really annoying!"

I spell it oy, but I think I've seen oi.

In Great Britain, yes, Oi! is a word for getting attention — e.g. in Billy Elliot, "Oi! Oi! Dancing boy!"

In the US, the sound is reversed: Yo!:

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It doesn't mean that. It's an impolite way of getting someone's attention. You might hear someone rudely shout "Oy! You! I want a word with you!" It can be used to express annoyance. "Oy! Don't do that! It's really annoying!"

In the US, when we say Oy!, it's Yiddish for Woe!, short for Oy, ve iz mir!: Oh, woe is me!: