Gesundheit sneeze1/1/2023 ![]() ![]() But they did brag that I was now bilingual. Somewhere along the way, I decided to alternate my use of “God bless you” and “Gesundheit.” My family didn’t like it. And a Brit shouts out, “Gesundheit.” Couldn’t happen, could it? Here we were with a couple of world wars with Germany in our near future and somehow “Gesundheit” came into fashion? What was that all about? Was it considered unpatriotic to offer a “Gesundheit” to an American soldier in a foxhole who happened to sneeze? I can’t imagine Winston Churchill railing against the Nazis and saying “Gesundheit” to a sneezing Brit? Winnie is giving his “Blood, sweat and tears” speech. The real question is how did Gesundheit’s popularity spread here? My sources tell me the practice of using “Gesundheit” for “God bless you” originated in 1914 (I’m thinking in response to the Kaiser showing signs of a head cold). You get one “God bless you” from me.ĭid you ever wonder why some people use the German version of “God bless you” - Gesundheit? People who never spoke a foreign language suddenly speak German when you sneeze. I don’t care if you’re Mother Teresa or Johnny Depp. It’s my own personal crusade to reduce the number of times I’m going to say “God bless you.” If that makes me a bad person, so be it. I wait until your last sneeze before I give you my “God bless you.” And if you resume sneezing less than five minutes later, I’m ignoring your sneezes. If you’ve got allergies, that’s your problem. You’re not getting more than one good “God bless you” out of me. But how do you tell when the last sneeze is really the last one? I’m parsimonious with my blessings. Do you say “God bless you” after each sneeze? Do you wait until a person is finished sneezing and utter the blessing only once? I practice the latter method. If you sneeze around an atheist, you’ll still get a “God bless you” in return.Īs far as I know, there is no set of rules governing how often you’re required to offer the blessing when someone sneezes multiple times. For some reason, the practice has continued to this day. The least a person could do was wish for God’s blessings to protect the person sneezing. The thought was that sneezing was a dangerous act that could leave a person vulnerable to illness. History says that folks once believed that when a person sneezes, their soul exits the body. She’d say, “Eeew - now you have a patent leather sleeve.” Patent leather is a high-gloss leather. My mother always seemed to catch me in the act. When I was a kid I did what all kids do - I wiped my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. And what do you do if you don’t have a change of mask at that point and you’re in public? It’s a worse scene than being caught without a tissue after a sneeze. Although I do feel some sympathy for you sneezers while wearing a mask. “God bless you” should be “God bless me” when you sneeze because I need protection more than you. The way some folks sneeze, 6 feet is not nearly enough distance to separate us. Nowadays with COVID still active, your sneeze is more dangerous to me than you. #Gesundheit sneeze how toOf all the courtesies our parents tried to teach us, why the hell would the one that stuck be how to react when someone sneezes? Were we brainwashed, and if so, why? Think about it. I don’t remember my parents training me on how to react when a person sneezes. ![]() As much as I hate Putin, if he sneezed while in my company, I’d find myself wishing that God blessed him. If Joe Biden sneezed and Donald Trump was in the room, he’d get a “God bless you” and vice-versa. The one thing that cuts across racial and political fault lines. I say, “God bless you” without even thinking. We’re conditioned to an automatic response. We react like Pavlov’s dog when someone sneezes. Why do we say “God bless you!” after a person sneezes? This is the kind of serious question that consumes me in my quest to understand humankind. ![]()
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