The other day I was waiting on a customer who’s son was with him. The son sneezed and I said gesundheit. The father looked very confused and asked me what I said (which confused me). He had no idea what I was talking about. He had a Southern accent (I live in Pennsylvania). Do they not say gesundheit in the South
Southerners says, “God Bless you,” according to my wife the GRITS. (Not to be mistaken with, “Well, bless your heart…”)
Saying “Gesundheit,” may be a regional, cultural, even a date-stamped response. How old did the father and child appear to be?
I thought gesundheit was German for God Bless you, or maybe just bless you. I got this from a co-worker with German ancestry. The expression is not used much in southwestern PA, most people say bless you or gableshyew (say it fast). Whenever I use gesundheit I usually get strange looks.
I say it, but I’m half German, grew up in a town that had churches that still had services in German, and my earliest memories of lullabys are notable because they were not in English. Said it when I spent part of my youth in Virginia, but they figured out what I meant and, because Virginians are not Southerners but a more cosmopolitan race (Hey! Just ASK them! 
), they were cool.
In the spirit of fighting ignorance, “gesundheit” literally means “health” in German. Of course, I didn’t know this when I first heard it from my best friend’s mother when I was about five, and thought she was saying “cushion tight!” for some reason after I sneezed.
From my experience, most people in the South or the bible belt say either ‘bless you’ or ‘god bless you.’
I say gesundheit all of the time. No one seems to look at me strangely here in the Pac NW.
I either don’t say anything or say “gesundheit,” mostly (as an atheist) to avoid saying the G and B words. I was under the impression that “gesundheit” was commonly understood.
We said “gesundheit,” which does indeed mean “health,” in West Texas.
When someone sneezes in Thailand, the belief is someone close by smells bad and needs a bath. They’ve looked at me very strangely in the past when I explained we say “gesundheit” or other phrases; they don’t undertand why you would say anything at all.
And frankly, neither do I.
I know why we say “gesundheit.” It’s an old German thing wishing someone good health, in case he or she’s coming down with a cold or bubonic plague or something.
Some people get mad if you don’t.
We said gesundheit in my family, I grew up in Virginia. Cute story, my wife’s family also said it and she thought it was just something her family made up, she was an adult when she found out other people said it.
I say gesundheit; I thought it was commonly understood. I’m in an area with a lot of Muslims and Indian-religions, and probably atheists, too. Just easier than offending everything with “bless you.”
I say gesundheit, and I’m born and raised Northern California…I’m guessing it comes from my mother’s side of the family (maternal grandfather’s side, to be specific), where there were several few off-the-boat German immigrants. (To my shame, I can’t recall offhand how many generations back, precisely. I think my great-grandmother, who my mother knew well, was born in this country, but I’m not sure. I think she’s the one who taught my mom the word “schiße!” though. But I’d have to check.)
I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that a lot of German immigrants settled in Texas (see, e.g., German Texan - Wikipedia ). I grew up in St. Louis, MO, and my mother’s family was German (both sides of her family immigrated to the US from Germany and settled in MO in the late 1800s), and when I was growing up we all said “gesundheit”. It wasn’t until I was sent to school that I ran into “God bless you” (mostly from nuns; I spent the first grade-school years in Catholic parochial school).
I’ve since become a St.-Louisan-in-exile in Memphis, TN, and FWIW, it’s very, very common for people here to say “bless you” or “God bless you” when someone sneezes. However, nobody looks at me askance when I say “gesundheit” (part force of habit from earliest childhood, and part because I’m an atheist), so that usage is at least recognized here. Then again, Memphis does have a fair number of carpetbaggers who settled here; I don’t know how they’d look at me in rural West Tennessee if I whipped out a “gesundheit” after someone sneezed.
Cheers,
bcg
I hear ‘gesundheit’ said sometimes here in Australia, but I expect there would be age, regional, and other patterns to it’s usage. I say it occasionally, when I think of it.
“Gesundheit” is also Yiddish, and it’s the default in my family. I’ve mostly lived in places with significant Jewish populations, so most people know what it means. I have had to explain it to the occasional, say, Mexican or Polish co-worker, though.
I’m fairly sure that should be “scheiße!”, at least if it’s the German word for shit you’re aiming for. (But pronounced with ‘I’ rather than ‘ee’.)
Oklahoma - I grew up saying “kazoontite” and have never had a problem. Most people here use some variation of “bless you”, but enough use the German that everyone’s familiar with it.
And another vote for thinking it’s a really strange custom that I could easily do without. It is odd how annoyed some people get if you skip it, though.