why do people say "bless you" after someone else sneezes?

Answer 1

We say "bless you." because it beats the crap out of "Ew, you just got snot on your hand"

Answer 2

Bless you is a common English expression used to wish a person well after sneezing.


ORIGINS

One traditional explanation for the custom is that it began literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory I the Great (AD 540-604) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the bubonic plague in AD 590 (his successor succumbed to it). To combat the plague, Gregory ordered litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's blessing. When someone sneezed (seen as the initial onset of the plague), they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not actually develop the disease


SUPERSTITION

Other explanations are based on superstitions and urban legends about sneezing and what a sneeze entails. Some well known superstitions that may have contributed to bringing bless you into common use are:

The heart stops when you sneeze (it doesn't), and the phrase bless you is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating.
A sneeze is the expulsion of some sort of evil, and the phrase is meant to ward off the evil's re-entry.
Your soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze, and saying bless you prevents your soul from being stolen by Satan or some evil spirit. Thus, bless you or God bless you is used as a sort of shield against evil.
A sneeze is good luck and saying "bless you" is no more than recognition of the sneezer's luckiness.
Alternatively, it may be possible that the phrase began rather uninterestingly as a response for an event that wasn't well understood at the time.

Another urban legend states that you cannot open your eyes while you sneeze, or if you manage to your eyes will pop out. Both of the statements are untrue.


MODERN USE

In many English-speaking countries, the German equivalent, Gesundheit (which roughly translated means "good health!") is proffered after sneezing.

In some parts of Australia, the expression is also used when a person belches or breaks wind; this usage is primarily an indication that the blesser has not been offended by the gaseous expulsions of the blessed. This is also true in the rural areas of New Zealand and in Auckland.


From Wiktionary:

BLESS YOU
An interjection phrase with the following definitions:

1. Short for (may) God bless you: said as a short prayer for the recipent.
2. Said to somebody who has sneezed, as a rhetorical response.

Answer 3

As per wikipedia, origin:
One traditional explanation for the custom is that it began literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory I the Great (AD 540-604) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the bubonic plague in AD 590 (his successor succumbed to it). To combat the plague, Gregory ordered litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's blessing. When someone sneezed (seen as the initial onset of the plague), they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not actually develop the disease.

And superstitions:
Other explanations are based on superstitions and urban legends about sneezing and what a sneeze entails. Some well known superstitions that may have contributed to bringing bless you into common use are:

* The heart stops when you sneeze (it doesn't), and the phrase bless you is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating.
* A sneeze is the expulsion of some sort of evil, and the phrase is meant to ward off the evil's re-entry.
* Your soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze, and saying bless you prevents your soul from being stolen by Satan or some evil spirit. Thus, bless you or God bless you is used as a sort of shield against evil.
* A sneeze is good luck and saying "bless you" is no more than recognition of the sneezer's luckiness.

Alternatively, it may be possible that the phrase began rather uninterestingly as a response for an event that wasn't well understood at the time.

Another urban legend states that you cannot open your eyes while you sneeze, or if you manage to your eyes will pop out. Both of the statements are untrue.

Answer 4

Long ago is was beleived that your Soul would try and escape the body whenever you sneezed and so saying "Bless You" was an attempt to keep your Soul in your body and prevent it from going anywhere until the day you died. The Pope even passed a law making it illegal for anyone near you to not say "Bless You" should you sneeze. As far as I know, that is the truth :-)

Answer 5

A Note on "Gesundheit"
Most people think "Gesundheit" is synonymous with "God Bless You". The confusion over the real meaning of the word Gesundheit, which means simply "health," probably dates back to the time of the Bubonic Plague, where sneezing was a symptom of the disease. Sneezing was supposedly the person's soul making a break for it! It was believed that sickness arose due to the lack of a soul. And so "soullessness" and ill-health became synonymous during the middle ages.

Answer 6

I cutted and pasteded

Traditional responses to a sneeze
In English-speaking countries, it is common for at least one person to say "God bless you" (or just "Bless you") after someone sneezes. This tradition originates from the Middle Ages, when it was believed that when one sneezed, the soul left the body and could be snatched by an evil spirit. For subsequent sneezes the following phrases are uttered in turn:

"Bless you"
"Keep you"
"May the lord have contenance upon you"
"and give you peace"

Answer 7

It is the reason to believe in Religious Truths. It is so in Islam also. On sneeze the person has to say, audibly, Absolute praise be to Allah. The listener has to respond by saying,:Mah His Mercy be on you: The medical science has found it out now, that during a sneeze, all body functions stop. The heart does also stop. The eyes can not remain open during a sneeze. It is 'death' for a tiny fraction of time. During the sneeze, the whole body makes only one function. To throw out the attacking Virus- Bacteria- Infection ... with all its force.

Answer 8

Arrr, many contrasting opinions.
Some right, others no where near.
Look it up if you are doubtful as many opinions can confuse people!
Okay, well in the middle ages, when the black death was around. (I think it killed about a third of he population?!)
Well sneezing was a common symptom of this disease, so when someone sneezed it was expected that death would follow shortly after as they would have this black death, the plague that was going around.
"bless you", was just a quick prayer sort of thing, as they knew that they were going to die, and it's stuck!

Answer 9

Now you've gone too far! The Americans (presumably this means people from the USA) have nothing to do with saying 'bless you', when you sneeze.
Never heard the heart.stopping theory, but it's widely used throughout Europe in one form or another e.g. Gesundheit/German, santé/French. The nursery rhyme 'Ring a ring of roses, a pocket full of posies, Atishoo, atashoo, we all fall down' confirms the plague theory. In the 13th century and later in the 17th century the world was pretty smelly. People carried posies of flowers to ward off sickness, because they thought the smells carried the sickness. In Turkish the expression is roughly 'long life.'

Answer 10

The people of Ancient England used to believe that when sneezing, the soul leaves the body and by saying bless you, it helps the soul return to the body quickly so that evil spirits can't enter. this was many years before the christian church invented the concept of a devil.

Answer 11

I think it goes back to the days of the Black Death and people believed if you said bless you after sneezing you wouldn't die, just another one of those odd sayings that everyone catches onto and it passes from one century to the next.