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Response to sneezing

List of responses to sneezes in multiple languages

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In English-speaking countries the usual response is "(God) bless you", and less commonly in the United States and Canada, the borrowed German word "Gesundheit", meaning "health". In most non-English-speaking cultures with a customary response, the phrase used is a wish for health or a long life, although references to God are also common; in a few traditions, particularly in East Asia, nothing is typically said and the sneezer may instead excuse themselves.

Origins and folklore

The convention of acknowledging a sneeze appears to have ancient roots and is found, in some form, across classical, medieval and pre-modern cultures. In ancient Greece and Rome, a sneeze was treated as an omen sent by the gods and could be interpreted as either favourable or unfavourable depending on the circumstances and timing. Roman responses included Salve! ("be well") and Iuppiter conservet ("may Jupiter preserve [you]"), and the involuntary, spontaneous nature of the sneeze was central to its perceived significance.

The most widely repeated origin story for the English phrase "bless you" attributes the custom to Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great), who is said to have instructed Christians during a plague that struck Rome in 590 to respond to sneezes (viewed as an early symptom) with a brief prayer for the sneezer. Other proposed origins include the belief that the soul could be temporarily expelled from the body during a sneeze, leaving the sneezer briefly vulnerable to demonic possession, and the older idea that the heart momentarily stopped during a sneeze; both have been documented as folk explanations but neither has any physiological basis. The practice was not in continuous use as the dominant Christian response throughout this period, and the modern blessing convention was probably established by repeated reinforcement of multiple overlapping superstitions rather than a single decree.

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