sneezing
n.— «This caused fuel to build up before back-firing, or “sneezing” in air force parlance, sending flames shooting from the rear of one of the Boeing’s two Rolls Royce engines.» —“Mid-air emergency as military plane has ‘sneezing’ fit” Stuff (New Zealand) July 29, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Ron in Gloverville, South Carolina, wonders about the phrase since hatchet was hammer, which some use to mean “for a long period of time,” as in My family has lived here since hatchet was hammer. Another phrase he’s heard indicating the same thing...