I’m as hard atheist as they come (well, not hand-stabbing or anything), yet years of indoctrination make it almost impossible for me not to say “bless you” or “gesundheit” whenever someone sneezes in my vicinity. My understanding has always been that this habit got started to reduce the chance of demons entering the person sneezing, although I may have it a bit garbled.
That brings me to the realization that I’m really not all that clear on the rules. For example, I’m not sure why demons can get in during sneezes, but not coughs (or farts for that matter). Since, collectively, the SDMB membership has repeatedly proven that it knows everything of significance, I’m asking for a bit of help here. What’s the consensus on the following:
Does a demon always get in whenever I emit an unblessed sneeze? I’m concerned because, if this is so, I must be carrying tens of thousands of the things around.
How come you can’t just bless yourself, instead of someone else doing it?
How long does a blessing last, anyway? A lot of people have multiple sneezes in one go, but one blessing seems to suffice. OTOH, it’s pretty clear that a blessing wears off after some non-zero period. An hour, a day? I’ve got no clue.
“Gesundheit” is not a blessing. It’s the German word for “health.” So if someone says it to you after you sneeze, they’re just wishing you good health.
So I doubt “gesundheit” has any effect as a demon-repellent.
I’d be surprised if anyone still actually believes the devil-in-the-sneeze thing anymore, even if they believe the blessing carries the weight of a god. It’s a supposedly a cultural residual from a time when a sneeze could really be the beginning of a deadly disease. (It still can be, but much, much less likely.) There isn’t even a clear origin to it, much less a detailed treatise on the care and feeding of sneeze-demons.
slightly off topic:
I generally rotate between “bless you,” “gesundheit,” and “salud.” If anyone has some other languages I could add to my lexicon, I’d love to hear them.
Please, please, please, don’t say anything. I have allergies and I’m prone to uncontrollable sneezing fits. It can be very embarrassing and the absolute last thing I need is for people to call attention to it and advertise that they heard it. It has nothing to do with religion. Just don’t say anything, please.
Elaine: What does it mean anyway? ‘God bless you’. It’s a stupid stuperstition.
Jerry: A stupid what?
Elaine: Whatever.
Jerry: You know, if you want to make a person feel better after they sneeze, you shouldn’t say ‘God bless you’, you should say, ‘You’re soo good-looking’'.
I’ve got to ask: “salud”? Really? I’m just curious as to where you all live. I’m a fluent Spanish speaker, and wouldn’t dream of saying it to anyone, other than to Spanish-speakers. Although… it might be odd for you folks to hear me saying “Gesundheit” instead of “bless you.” Southeast Michigan here.
Gesund means health…heit pretty much means “high”…so high health.
I was always under the impression that “Bless you” was from the plague. A sneeze meant you had it, and people said bless you cuz you gon’ die!
To pick more nits, my understanding of the suffix “-heit” is as the English “-ness.” So, health-ness. Kind of the same as -ität. Unless of course you’re seeing “Gesundhoch” or something on your particular display.
Clive once said “Bakumiku!” to Alex in the belief that when he sneezed in front of some Japanese people they had said the equivalent of “Bless you!”. Alex pointed out that public nose-blowing was highly taboo in Japanese culture and directed Clive to the dictionary, where he discovered he had actually been called a “round-eyed devil”.
Is this a sneeze blessing?