I know in English is is customary to say “Bless You” or “Gesundheit” in response to someone sneezing - but apparently, this custom is not confined to English: it is damn-near universal.
Almost all of the responses are variants of either “be healthy!” or “[God] Bless you!”.
My question is - how did this custom get so apparently universally popular?
I can’t tell you why responding to sneezes is so common, but I can back up the list’s lack of an entry for Japanese. After someone sneezed in a Japanese course I was taking, all us students said “bless you,” paused, then turned to our professor to learn how one says such a thing in Japanese. She thought for a moment then told us that there wasn’t any such saying and that one just doesn’t really respond to sneezes in Japanese.
Penn Gillette says that in his family, they say, “That’s funny.” I sometimes say, “That’s weird.”
They have three entries for Vietnamese, but in my experience it’s very rare for Vietnamese to say any of them, or anything at all, in response to a sneeze.
Any involuntary bodily action can get a response or interpretation. A common idea is that it’s a sign of the gods (as when Telemachos sneezes in the Odyssey) or it can be a superstition indicating good or bad fortune. People respond to sneezes (saying “Bless you”), but it’s not that different from saying “Excuse me” when you fart, or thinking that random itches / blinks / twitches have some sort of meaning.
The belief-behaviour complexes are too widespread and too old to give a definitive answer for origin, and the contemporary meanings vary tremendously from culture to culture.
That’s not going to stop people from chiming into this thread with every origin legend they’ve ever heard, but all of those are also folklore. They might have some truth to them, but probably not and in any case there’s no way to establsih it. Some common goodies are:
I’m actively trying to get us past this silly custom. I don’t participate. If asked, I say that I feel unqualified to go around blessing people.
I too wish this silly custom would go away. I hate it.
“You’re SO good-looking.”
http://www.seinology.com/scripts/script-37.shtml
I suggest that we Dopers use this thread to suggest some really silly ways to respond when someone sneezes.
How about, when someone sneezes, one should say: “Got snot?”
One friend and I forcefully say, “SHUT UP!” whenever we sneeze. That causes some interesting looks when it happens in public.
I have two grand children and we just say “Achoo!” in a funny accent.
My respect for Japanese culture has increased.
I am pretty sure, however, that we British are much less inclined to comment on someone’s sneeze than Americans are.
Of course, both the English and, even more, the Japanese, are famed for their reticence and politeness.
Perhaps it has something to do with living on small, crowded islands and having to get along; we avoid calling attention to other people’s embarrassment.
In the US I see it fading away. I think it was Catholic thing.
I typically sneeze many times in a row or not at all. After the third or fourth or seventeenth, my gf traditionally says, “god damnit stop that”.
That’s interesting – my impression has always been that in England where I live, “bless you !” is very frequently said when someone sneezes. Moreover – pace Urbanredneck (below) – we’re not a predominantly Catholic country.
I admit that my response to learning that the Japanese have no custom / standard phrase re reacting to sneezes, was to think (in an affectionate kind of way), “trust that lot to do differently from the rest of the world !”
According to snopes, the custom is very old, and the earliest mentions of it are in classical Greek and Roman literature - so definitely pre-dating Christianity.
It just struck me as odd that is has such cross-cultural appeal … the Japanese aside, of course.
Are there any cultures where people say something to you if you hiccup or yawn?
Apparently, in Iran, for hiccups you say “You’re earning me something” to the sufferer to get good luck. Otherwise, mostly it looks like the hiccuper is the speaker.
The same source (Mozzani’s Livre des Superstitions) says that in India, you say Mârâyan! for a yawn.
So, tentatively, the answer is “yes, there are.”
My mother would sneeze in trios. And loudly. So, after sneeze #3, I’d say to her, “Are you done?”
Just confirming that nobody says anything to a sneezer in Japan.
If it’s a particularly loud or otherwise unpleasant sneeze (especially one that interrupts conversation), the sneezer might say the equivalent of “Sorry” or “Excuse me” and everyone is content to leave it at that.
Sneezes are bound to attract attention given how loud they are.