konzo
n.— «Cases of konzo, an incurable disabling disease associated with high food insecurity, were reported to be increasing in Bas-Congo, FAO said. In its latest DRC food security update, received by IRIN on Monday, FAO said that pressure caused by the economic crisis has led people in the area to reduce the number of days they soak locally-grown bitter cassava, which was insufficient to remove the high toxic cyanide content from the staple food before it was consumed.» —“DRC: Heavy casualties as fighting continues” IRIN Aug. 17, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Colin from Los Angeles, California, is pondering the expression make no bones about it, which suggests the speaker is talking or acting with no hesitation whatsoever. The saying is inspired by the idea of literally finding bones in one’s food, since...
A North Carolina listener is curious about his meemaw’s use of a term meaning “food” that he heard as either jasmine or jassum. A dialectal term with various spellings that include jassum, jasum, and jazm can mean “gravy,” “sauce,” or even “juice...