There was the following sentence in Time magazine (September 16) titled “”America’s weak and waffling. Russia’s rich and resurgent”:
“2008 summer also put Russia’s military to the test when a war broke
out with Georgia. Although Russia crashed its tiny adversary in less
than a week, its war machine was shown to be an inefficient wreck.
More tanks were lost to malfunction than enemy fire, and at one time
Russian officers were forced to use store-bought navigation gadgets
after the official ones gave out. “There were a lot of red faces in
the general staff,” recalls Sivkov, the military strategist.
Oxford online English Dictionary doesn’t carry the ‘red-face’ as a headword, but includes ‘red-faced’ as an adjective meaning ‘having a red face, especially as a result of embarrassment or shame.’
Cambridge online English Dictionary has entry of neither ‘red face’ nor ‘red-faced.’
Now, what does ‘red faces’ in the above quote exactly mean?
Does it refer to people (Russian army’s general staff) with red face, or their sentiment (anger / embarrassment about the incompetence of their war machine)?
Why is it ‘in’, not ‘among’ the general staff?
Best Answer
"Red faces" means people who are blushing from embarrassment. As far as I know, the expression is not generally used to indicate anger. The expression is figurative, it doesn't mean the people were actually blushing, just that they had done something worthy of being ashamed about.
You are correct that among would have worked as well or better than in.