The Sneezing Dilemma
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If air comes up involuntarily from your stomach and exits out through your mouth, what do you do? You say, "Excuse me." If air escapes from your intestines and exits out of your ass, what do you do? Well, you probably try to pretend it wasn't you. But if there's no escaping the truth, you say, "Excuse me."
But if air instead travels at high speed out of your nose and mouth due to a tickle in your nose, a very different ritual occurs. Most people say nothing after they sneeze, and they expect those around them to say, "Bless you." What in God's name is that all about?!
Most of my life I believed one popular explanation of this: "God bless you" started being said during the time of the Black Plague in 13th and 14th century Europe because a sneeze was a sign of the plague, and people were trying to avert further spread of the disease with some magic God-juju.
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While this sounds like a pretty good explanation, it's not true, because the first written record of the practice goes back to the 1st century CE - long before that particular plague.
Snopes lists a half dozen possible reasons that people started saying "God bless you" to sneezers, from aversion to disease, to fear that people's souls would pop out of their mouths, to trying to stop demons from entering the body, and even as a recognition that sneezing is just plain lucky. (So the blessing is more affirmative than precautionary.)
Whatever the actual reason it became common practice, clearly in retrospect that reason was dumb. And I hate sounding dumb if I can help it. So I really hate saying, "God bless you" to people when they sneeze.
On the flipside though, I don't like being impolite. (I mean, unless you're an asshole, in which case I'll be an asshole right back.) I don't want to be stuck in a room with someone who sneezes, and then I'm silent, and the girl thinks I'm being rude.
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So this wish to appear neither dumb (mostly to myself) or like a savage (to others) causes me many social dilemmas each day.
Now look, I'm an atheist. So any time the concept of "god" gets brought up, the thing is going to look pretty silly to me. But I get it - that's not everyone. Lots of people think a god or gods are real. I'll respect that for the purpose of this post. Because if you think about it, you don't have to be an atheist to think that saying "God bless you" in response to a sneeze is pretty fucking silly.
As noted above - people make all kinds of involuntary bodily noises. None of those noises require a blessing, so why should a sneeze? It's all part and parcel of the same idea: your body just made an irritating/disturbing/disgusting sound that infringed on the people around you. The rationally polite thing to do is say, "Excuse me."
You may believe in God, but I'm assuming (hoping?) you don't believe in demons or escaping souls or lucky sneezes or even that saying the words "bless you" will stop a plague.
So join me in being civilized! When you sneeze, just say "Excuse me," and let's leave the superstition to the Middle Ages.
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In Hebrew, when one sneezes, we say something that translates to "Be healthy."
So why not go for that? Sounds much better than giving people yet another thing to apologize for ;-)
More or less the same reasons. I try to say Salut. But then that feels weird too.
But again, the sneeze is no different from a burp or a fart. Your body made an involuntary noise. Excuse yourself and move on! :)
The question then becomes, why are we apologizing for a natural thing we can't stop? I mean, we can actually hold in a fart. We can burp with our mouths closed. But stopping a sneeze can have detrimental health repercussions! :D
Lol... Interesting to see the different reactions to the "involuntary bodily noises" from various cultures around the world! Narrowing down on the sneeze - here, I find most just use a half of that reply - "Bless you", instead the full "God bless you"; more of a reply habit than meaning anything...
When I first saw your username, thought it said Achoo.
Was about to say "
GodBless you". Lol Jk jkTrue. But, really, a blessing can't exist without a god. So it's always implied.
Again, though, god is kind of beside the point. If people said, "You are sure to win the lottery!" when people sneezed, it would be just as silly and worth changing. :)
Nice suggestion, but I think I'll take it down a different road; from now on, I'm gonna say "God Bless" to everyone that farts or burps!
Heh, that's a way to go too.
I too am an atheist and have felt an aversion to the bless you phrase, but that's only part of my issue with the whole sneezing etiquette (because if I'm being honest I still use "oh my God" and other such phrases).
The second part of my aversion is the fact that when I sneeze I have a recovery period after the sneeze and when someone says "God bless you" I feel like I have to let out a quick "thank you" or "excuse me" or something and it feels pretty annoying. Like, hey can we just move on and not have to do this strange back and forth thing?
AAaaannd then there's the people who sneeze once, and then again, and then again and you're stuck saying over and over and over again "bless you" while they try desperately to force out a "thanks" before sneezing again. The whole thing is a mess that serves no purpose and I just ignore people who sneeze now. If they want to think I'm rude, well, that sucks, but at least I don't have to deal with all the issues involved in the whole thing.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wrestles with these kinds of things.
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