blood border
n.— «She began by citing the history of the drinking age becoming 21 and the problems along the way. In the process of making a unified law, many states set their own drinking ages, according to Meripolski. This set the stage for people under age to travel to obtain their alcohol. “This created what has been known as ’blood borders,'” Meripolski said. “The youths would travel across state borders to obtain alcohol and in some cases die in traffic accidents on the way back across the border after drinking.”» —“Drinking age questioned at symposium debate” by John Coleman in Southern Methdodist University Daily Campus (Dallas, Texas) Apr. 18, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...