How/why did saying things like bless you or gesundheit start? And when?
Off the top of my head, I think something in traditional European beliefs said that the soul was at risk of flying out of the nose when one sneezed. Hence people would say “bless you” in case you died and were at risk of otherwise falling into hell.
(Edit:) This vaguely supports my memory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_bless_you#Origins_and_legends
“A sneeze is your soul trying to leave your body. Saying God Bless You shoves it back in.”
I always say this as a joke. I’m pretty sure it’s from the Simpsons, and not an actual historical belief. If you have any source that shows this an old wives tale or folkloric legend, I’d love to see it. That’d make it even funnier to me haha.
I was told this explanation in the 1970s by someone who was told it in the 1930s. So unless Groening is a time traveler, it didn’t originate with the Simpsons.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bless-you/ is a good read; the truth is that Europeans and Middle Easterners have been doing it for so long (at least 2000 years) that the reason is lost to time; now it’s purely tradition/cultural. Early writings record that it was done, but not why.
And why not farts
Because the onus is on the farter to say something courteous. Because we, for some reason, decided that a involuntary, natural bodily function is rude.
I don’t know, but I wish it’d stop.
Yeah we should just blankly stare at them instead as they cover you in a mist of snot
Perhaps it’d be less awkward if we all say “fuck you” by convention instead.
I use the German word Gesundheit. It means health. I will offer it for most audible bodily functions, though, not just sneezes.
i dont know why but i always assumed it relevant/appearing around the black death in the middle ages
