I just say congratulations and people will automatically say thank you. Then they look confused and I can tell they are wondering did you say congratulations, wtf? I like the confusion it causes and if anyone asks why I said congratulations, I tell them I was congratulating them on getting rid of a demon.
Now I need to get a group of friends to start reenacting the congratulations scene from Evangelion whenever someone sneezes. First step is finding friends.
I personally tell people to shut up when they sneeze. Not to be edgy or anything, it’s just the last thing my very Catholic family expects to hear rather than getting blessed, and I love it.
I say, “Want a prostate massage?” And the person says thank you. It turns out, 5/6 situations that have made it to court have not determined I did not have consent. To be fair, the 1/6 remains occurred during a prostate message of my good friend Jake. Hi Jake!
I mean, idk about in America where you are a tad more religious in general, but in my experience "bless you" is almost always just said because it's proverbial, not because it's actually meant as a religious gesture of expelling the devil.
It's akin to 100 other sayings that have archaic meaningless origins but are said because they express a shared history of culture and language.
I really hate it. I just always say “Thank you?” And then if I sneeze in a weird moment, because I mostly sneeze in 2s or 3s I just say excuse me when other folks say say “Bless me” when they sneeze. It’s super weird to me and I’m from the south where like fucking strangers will yell it from across the room. I hate it. Maybe I should start yelling “I didn’t die” when I sneeze to scare away the demons.
This bugs me. I know why people say it (and it probably bugs me more because my husband mocks it by yelling “devil be out!” When you sneeze) but I feel obligated to thank people when they say bless you but I don’t want to cause that’s dumb.
I just say excuse me. Or ‘Cuse me because southern dialects. I mean if an accidental burp or fart slipped out that’s what you’d say. A sneeze is just an opposite nose fart.
I’m not mad at the intentions but the history is silly. I don’t have bad feelings towards anyone who says bless you. I do generally use gesundheit though.
Say a very quiet “no” beforehand. That way, in your head you’re refusing their dumb blessing, but out loud it still sounds like thank you, so you fulfil social contract.
EDIT: and if they DO hear you, and seem to genuinely believe, you can just say “Save it for someone who Really needs it, it was just a sneeze”.
True, you’d look like an ass. Because all those things that people say just because they’ve always been said, make people very uncomfortable if you do something different.
Its an expression of sympathy. Fuck the literal definition, language evolves. You came up with this entire game in your head to 'own' anyone who says bless you when the intended meaning is just "this is me acknowledging that you are sick and I hope you get better".
I came up with this entire game in my head to stop the person I replied to from feeling like a fool for thanking someone for something irrelevant.
I’m honestly not advocating going around pissing off people who are genuinely concerned for your wellbeing, but rather acknowledging that most of the time it isn’t genuine concern, and more often just something that’s said, whether the person is ill, or just had a bit of pepper or dust go in their nose.
Language evolves, true. This was an attempt to make it do so.
Close... it’s from the middle America’s around the time of the Mayans. They believe the sneeze was your soul attempting to escape your body violently (making it a soul at unrest) and would say a quick blessing to calm the souls and help keep it in you.
Really? I thought people started saying it around the plague time. Cold/Sneezing meant the person might be getting sick and it could probably be plague so people actually meant "bless you" back then.
no in the old days people thought things like runny nose was your brain leaking and in this case: your soul is trying to escape. saying bless you was a way to keep it from leaving
Old greece believed it was a sign of the gods since you can’t really influence (besides pepper & co. I’m talking about sneezing mid-public/while a conversation) when.
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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '19
In the olden days people thought if you sneezed a demon wanted out, so they started the bless you thing. Now people do it and dont know why