Reasoning behind no "God Bless You!" when sneezing

by kristyann 14 Replies latest jw friends

kristyann

What, exactly, is the reasoning behind JWs not being allowed to say "God Bless you!" after someone sneezes. I remember going to my boyfriend's house and no one said it and I thought it was just plain rude... but they are rude people in every other regard, anyway. But anyway, whats the reason behind this? (Thanks for tolerating the questions of a newbie.) :-)
slugga

Because it harkens back to Christian superstition. I started off in the middle ages and was said to people when they sneezed in the hope that the sneezer didn't go on to develop the plague.
daniel-p

I never say "bless you" when people sneeze, and hate it when others say it to me. It is simple superstition, which makes it stupid and silly.
Why not say "bless you" when someone stumbles walking? Or when they cough? Im not even a jw at heart anymore, but I will never say bless you.
But hey, I guess people get a kick out of absurdity.
mrsjones5
Why do we say "God bless you" after a sneeze?

27-Sep-2001

Dear Straight Dope:

How or why did saying "God bless you" become associated as an expression one says to another after the other sneezes? I've found some reasons listed below, but, somehow, I don't think any of them are very legitimate:
When someone sneezes his heart stops and saying "God bless you" means "I'm glad your heart started again."

Saying "God bless you" when you sneeze keeps the devil from flying down your throat.

When someone sneezes, say "God bless you and may the devil miss you."

When you sneeze your soul tries to escape and saying "God bless you" crams it back in (said by Millhouse in an episode of The Simpsons).

How about giving me the Straight Dope? --Rob Amato, Washington, DC

SDSTAFF Songbird replies:
If you've just sneezed, Rob, I think I'd rather give you a box of Kleenex.
The custom of saying "God bless you" after a sneeze was begun literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague (his successor succumbed to it). Gregory (who also invented the ever-popular Gregorian chant) called for litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's help and intercession. Columns marched through the streets chanting, "Kyrie Eleison" (Greek for "Lord have mercy"). When someone sneezed, they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague. All that prayer apparently worked, judging by how quickly the plague of 590 AD diminished.
The connection of sneezing to the plague is not the first association of sneezing with death. According to Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown, many cultures, even some in Europe, believe that sneezing expels the soul--the "breath of life"--from the body. That doesn't seem too far-fetched when you realize that sneezing can send tiny particles speeding out of your nose at up to 100 miles per hour!
We know today, of course, that when you sneeze, your heart doesn't stop, nor will your eyes pop out if you can keep them open (www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_30 4.html), nor does your soul get expelled. What does get expelled are hundreds upon thousands of microscopic germs. The current advice when you sneeze is to cover your mouth with your arm rather than your hand. That way, all those germs won't be on your hands when you touch the countless things you're going to touch in the course of the day (don't tell us; we don't want to know).
There are many superstitions regarding sneezing, some of which you've already listed. But here are some of my favorites.
Sneeze on Monday for health,

Sneeze on Tuesday for wealth,

Sneeze on Wednesday for a letter,

Sneeze on Thursday for something better,

Sneeze on Friday for sorrow,

Sneeze on Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow,

Sneeze on Sunday, safety seek.
One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a letter

Four for a boy.

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret, never to be told.
And lastly, a sneeze before breakfast is a sign that you will hear exciting news before the end of the day.
I assume you sneezed this morning, Rob, because you've just been blessed with the Straight Dope.
--SDSTAFF Songbird

Straight Dope Science Advisory Board
The earliest mentions of the practice carry no hint of the reasons for the practice, leaving us with a mystery.
Protective oath? (And, if so, was it to keep the soul in or the demons out?) Commendation of the dying to God's mercy? Something to do with the sneezer's heart stopping? Recognition of good fortune? A response, in substance if not in kind, to the utterance of another? There's no way to tell now; the reason behind the origin is lost in the mists of time.
Of the five most touted answers, the last is the reason for the practice's survival into modern times and could even be the key to the origin of the custom. Our perceptions of evil spirits, souls, and the Devil change over the centuries, as does our view of how the heart works, how to act around the dying, and our beliefs about what customs attract good luck. Yet one constant survives the ages: the need for manners. Expressions of politeness are often crystallized into formulaic responses, with Social Situation X prompting knee-jerk Response Y. Thus the standardized responses of "Bless you!" or "God bless!" now impart little other than a message of empathetic acknowledgement. They are ordinary politenesses that are offered immediately and almost without thought whenever a sneeze is heard.
The need to recognize that one has been spoken to or saluted in some other fashion (an acquaintance waves from across the street, for example) lies behind our habit of acknowledging greetings with a like degree of civility and friendliness even if we don't much care for the person hailing us. Such responses have become so deeply trained into us that for us humans the hardest thing to say is nothing at all.
These days, one says "Bless you!" because it is expected, not out of concern for the wellbeing of the sneezer's soul or heart, a need to disassociate oneself from the dying, or envy for another's presumed luck. We do it because we've been taught this is an obligatory response whose omission would seem glaring. We "bless" out of a desire to not be perceived as impolite, a perception that would take root if the sneeze were to be received in silence.
In the final analysis, it may not be as much about souls leaping out or demons clawing to get in as it is about simple human acknowledgement of another's presence.
Barbara "snot for the day" Mikkelson
Last updated: 17 April 2001 http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/blessyou.htm
Clam

Slugga's defintion is what I've heard. These expressions are very spontaneous and come out almost subliminally. I remember a talk at my old Cong where people were talking on the platform about how they got into the trooth. One brother remarked that he'd "had a hell of a time" convincing his new wife that she should be baptised. No one seemed to batter an eyelid.

IronClaw

Claim: The origin of saying "Bless you!" when someone sneezes stems from an ancient desire to safeguard the sneezer's soul or to commend the dying to the mercy of God.

Status: Undetermined.

Origins: It's expected

we'll say "Bless you!" (or "God bless!") when someone nearby sneezes, but does anyone really know why we do this? Are we trying to protect the sneezers from evil spirits? Are we fending off the Devil? Is this a remnant of an ancient recognition that sneezers aren't long for this world, thus we commend their souls to God even as we wash our hands of them? Are we congratulating them on their impending good luck? (As silly as this may sound now, sneezing was at one long-ago time seen as a fortuitous portent.)

Some questions, no matter how simple, don't have one knowable answer. Though a number of "explanations" exist for this custom, nothing points to any one of them being its origin.

Common among these explanations are:

At one time people believed a man's soul could be inadvertently thrust from his body by an explosive sneeze, thus "Bless you!" was a protective oath uttered to safeguard the temporarily expelled and vulnerable soul from being snatched up by Satan (who was always lurking nearby). The purpose of the oath was to cast a temporary shield over the flung-out soul which would protect it just long enough to regain the protection of the corporeal body.
Conversely, the sneeze itself was the expulsion of a demon or evil spirit which had taken up residence in a person. Therefore, although the "Bless you!" was again a protective charm meant to protect the sneezer from evil, in this version it was meant to ward off the re-entry of an evil spirit which a tormented soul had just rid itself of.
The heart was believed to momentarily stop during a sneeze (it doesn't), thus the "Bless you!" was uttered either as a supplication for life to return or as a congratulation upon its successful restart.
Others claim an association of the practice with particular dire diseases (most often the bubonic plague, or "Black Death," as it is sometimes known). They say an infected person's sneeze was sure sign he'd soon be pushing up daisies, thus the "Bless you!" was intended as a benediction to the nearly-departed, a way of commending his soul to the care of God now that he was beyond the help of anything in the mortal world.
Yet other folks echo the theme of other superstitions about sneezes, that these expulsions are either in themselves lucky or foretell good fortune coming the sneezer's way. For them, the "Bless you!" is a recognition of incoming good luck, possibly even an attempt on the blesser's part to attract a bit of it to himself.
Finally, some see the sneeze as a blessing bestowed by the sneezer upon the sneezed-upon. Answering a sneeze with "Bless you!" is seen as nothing more remarkable than replying "Good morning!" to the person who had just greeted you with the same phrase.

So many explanations -- each deeply believed -- for such a simple and often unquestioned practice. And we'll never know which one is right.

We look to what has been recorded about this practice of blessing a sneezer for any clues to the reasons that prompted its origin. Once again, we are disappointed; although the practice is old enough for mention of it to surface in ancient writings (the earliest from 77 A.D., the generation right after Christ), no one apparently deemed it noteworthy enough to explain why anyone would think to do this. By the time anyone thought to question the reason for the custom, blessing people when they sneeze had already been deeply ingrained in our evolving culture for century upon century. At this point, although folks were quick to assert various reasons for these oaths (talking through one's hat is not new; even folks from centuries ago were fond of engaging in this practice), no one could honestly be said to know the definitive answer, no matter how authoritatively he stated his position. Certainly none of the later scribes who saw fit to pass along their explanations of the practice could point to anything from the time of the custom's origin that would explain it.

The oldest sightings mentioned in Opie and Tatem's A Dictionary of Superstitions are:

[Pliny, Natural History, AD 77]
Why is it that we salute a person when he sneezes, an observation which Tiberius Caesar, they say, the most unsociable of men, as we all know, used to exact, when riding in his chariot even?
[Apuleius, Golden Ass, AD 150]
'Bless you, my dear!' he said, and 'bless you, bless you!' at the second and third sneeze.
[Greek Anthology, ante AD 500]
Dick cannot blow his nose whene'er he pleases, His nose so long is, and his arm so short; Nor ever cries, God bless me! when he sneezes -- He cannot hear so distant a report.

The earliest mentions of the practice carry no hint of the reasons for the practice, leaving us with a mystery.

Protective oath? (And, if so, was it to keep the soul in or the demons out?) Commendation of the dying to God's mercy? Something to do with the sneezer's heart stopping? Recognition of good fortune? A response, in substance if not in kind, to the utterance of another? There's no way to tell now; the reason behind the origin is lost in the mists of time.

Of the five most touted answers, the last is the reason for the practice's survival into modern times and could even be the key to the origin of the custom. Our perceptions of evil spirits, souls, and the Devil change over the centuries, as does our view of how the heart works, how to act around the dying, and our beliefs about what customs attract good luck. Yet one constant survives the ages: the need for manners. Expressions of politeness are often crystallized into formulaic responses, with Social Situation X prompting knee-jerk Response Y. Thus the standardized responses of "Bless you!" or "God bless!" now impart little other than a message of empathetic acknowledgement. They are ordinary politenesses that are offered immediately and almost without thought whenever a sneeze is heard.

The need to recognize that one has been spoken to or saluted in some other fashion (an acquaintance waves from across the street, for example) lies behind our habit of acknowledging greetings with a like degree of civility and friendliness even if we don't much care for the person hailing us. Such responses have become so deeply trained into us that for us humans the hardest thing to say is nothing at all.

These days, one says "Bless you!" because it is expected, not out of concern for the wellbeing of the sneezer's soul or heart, a need to disassociate oneself from the dying, or envy for another's presumed luck. We do it because we've been taught this is an obligatory response whose omission would seem glaring. We "bless" out of a desire to not be perceived as impolite, a perception that would take root if the sneeze were to be received in silence.

In the final analysis, it may not be as much about souls leaping out or demons clawing to get in as it is about simple human acknowledgement of another's presence.

Barbara "snot for the day" Mikkelson

Last updated: 17 April 2001

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/blessyou.htm
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Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2003
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
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Sources:

Opie, Iona and Moira Tatum. A Dictionary of Superstitions.

Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1992. ISBN 0-19-282916-5 (p. 364).

Renner, Gerald. "Sneezing Inextricably Linked to One's Soul."

The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News. 5 September 1998 (p. D2).

bikerchic

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgesundheit.html
LOL mrsjones5 beat me to it! So I'll just add this article from the ~~ASLEEP!~~ rag......
From a 1999 AWAKE!:
Superstitions—How Widespread Today?
IT HAPPENS everywhere—at work, at school, on public transportation, and on the street. You sneeze, and people you’ve never met, mere passersby, say: "God bless you" or simply "Bless you." There are similar expressions in many languages. In German the response is "Gesundheit." Arabs say "Yarhamak Allah," and some South Pacific Polynesians say "Tihei mauri ora."
Believing that it is simply common courtesy rooted in social etiquette, you may have given little thought to why people say this. Yet, the expression is rooted in superstition. Moira Smith, librarian at the Folklore Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A., says of the expression: "It comes from the idea that you are sneezing out your soul." To say "God bless" is, in effect, asking God to restore it.
Of course, most people would probably agree that to believe that the soul escapes your body during a sneeze is irrational. Not surprisingly, therefore, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines superstition as "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation."
Little wonder that a 17th-century physician called superstitions of his day the "vulgar errors" of the uneducated. Thus, as humans entered the 20th century with its scientific achievements, The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1910 optimistically foresaw the time when "civilization [would be] freed from the last ghost of superstition."
As
Widespread as Ever
That optimism of some eight decades ago was unfounded, for superstition seems as firmly entrenched as ever. Such durability is characteristic of superstitions. The word "superstition" derives from the Latin super, meaning "above," and stare, "to stand." Warriors who survived in battle were called, in effect, superstites, since they outlived fellow warriors in battle, in a literal way "standing" above them. Alluding to this derivation, the book Superstitions states: "The superstitions that still exist today stand above the ages that attempted to obliterate them." Consider just a few examples of the persistence of superstitions.
· After the sudden death of the governor of a major Asian city, a demoralized staff at his official residence advised the incoming governor to consult a special psychic, who proposed a number of changes in and around the complex. The staff felt that the changes would neutralize the ill omen.
· A special rock is the constant companion of the president of a multimillion-dollar company in the United States. Since her first successful trade show, she refuses to leave home without it.
· Before closing major business transactions, Asian business executives often seek the advice of a soothsayer.
· An athlete, although training extensively, credits his victory to an article of clothing. So he continues to wear it—unwashed—in future contests.
· A student uses a certain pen to take an exam and receives a high mark. Thereafter, he views the pen as "lucky."
· On her wedding day, a bride carefully arranges her wedding ensemble so that it includes "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue."
· A person opens the Bible at random and reads the text that first meets his eye, believing that those words will provide the particular guidance he needs at the moment.
· As a jumbo jet roars down the runway for takeoff, several passengers make the sign of the cross. Another caresses a "Saint" Christopher medallion during the flight.
Clearly, even today superstition is very widespread. In fact, Stuart A. Vyse, associate professor of psychology at Connecticut College, states in his book Believing in Magic—The Psychology of Superstition: "Although we live in a technologically advanced society, superstition is as widespread as it has ever been."
Superstition is so well entrenched today that efforts to stamp it out have failed. Why is this so?
ozziepost

My understandingf of the "Bless you" expression is that it did indeed relate to the plague. When a person sneezed it was an indicator that he/she was a victim of the plague and would shortly die, so someone hearing the sneeze would wish them well on their departure i.e. to heaven, by saying, "God bless you".
somebodylovesme

I say, "Gesundheit!" ... which just means good health. It's half habit, half a way of saying, "Hope you're not getting sick." Of course, sneezing doesn't mean you're always getting sick ... but I hate having drippy icky colds where I'm sneezing all the time. :(
stillajwexelder

A tishoo, a tishoo, we all fall down

Reasoning behind no "God Bless You!" when sneezing

Why do we say "God bless you" after a sneeze?

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