Talk:Red flag (signal)

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"The term and the expression "to raise the red flag" come from an element of some letter box construction: a semaphore arm that is raised to indicate to the postman that there is outgoing mail in the letter box."

I doubt this very much. As a commonwealth English speaker at least, "to raise a red flag" means not just "please pay attention", but that "something is very, VERY wrong". I imagine it's more likely to come from the railways, where a red flag was - and is - recognised as an urgent danger signal. FiggyBee 17:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)