Social conditioning and "God Bless You"

Ok, since we have peeps from a lot of non-Western, non-Christian oriented cultures, I thought I'd pose the following here....

Why the West says "God Bless You"... If you read that you'll see there's a lot of hypothesis about why we say "Bless You" when a person sneezes. Essentially they revolve around some kind of spiritual/supernatural (depending on your viewpoint) belief.

But, regardless if you're a believer, skeptic, or athiest, you can realize that most of those reasons are archaic. You probably also realize that you say "God Bless You" or some form of it even if you are a believer, skeptic, or athiest.

My point is that in 2007, no one outside of Liberty University actually believes you're blowing evil spirits out of your nose or that it is a sign of your impending death. HOWEVER, we recognize that saying "GBY" is a common courtesy, an acknowledgment of someone's (minor, hopefully) suffering.

So far, so good. Right?

And, now to my real point.

I find it hilarious/bizarre/unfortunate that we don't extend the same common, simple courtesy whenever someone coughs. To me, a cough and a sneeze are, roughly speaking, expressions of the same thing... A physical, vocal, obvious externalization of a persons physical suffering at some level. If you cough or sneeze your body is basically saying "I don't feel well" or "let me get rid of this annoyance... and GONE".

So, why not extend the same social courtesy to coughers that we do to sneezers?

Social conditioning.

You want to really blow someone's mind? When they obviously cough, say "God bless you". The response you get will run the gamut from a snicker ("lol that idiot thinks I sneezed") to correction ("um... I didn't sneeze") to indignation ("I DID NOT SNEEZE, I COUGHED") to WTH (usually a blank stare).

So, I love to do this as a way to express social courtesy and as a small tweak to the giant cog of social conditioning that we can't escape; so much so that we actually make people feel bad for violating it in a way that is really to our betterment. (Yes, sometimes you get anger as the response)... and that is, I make it a point to say "God Bless You" when people cough. Do it enough and eventually you will see people who's ears smoke from their inability to make it compute.

My question to our non-Western, non-Christian friends on the forum.... What are the social norms in your culture for expressing sympathy to someone who just coughed or just sneezed? Do you have a similar dichotomy?

I'm going to have to agree. It should be extended to coughing. Perhaps the devil gives you lung cancer?

I don't know about extending it to coughing. If that were to happen, it should be something different than 'Bless you' cause someone can cough frequently for hours and I'm not going to waste my time saying "Bless you" for each and every cough! I mean I had a roommate that coughed all night long!

That's very true. But a sneeze is much more noticeable than a cough, and when a cough becomes noticeable people will usually get concerned and say "are you all right?"

In other words the sneeze response is automated social conditioning while the cough response is more of a rational, case-by-case basis.

And since I try to avoid religious-related expressions (such as OMG, WTH, Darn/Dang and the like), I'm constantly torn when I say "Bless you". Yeah, I say it because I don't want to seem rude, and as you said people say it without really meaning it

I usually say "gesundheit". I got my younger sisters to say "salud", the Spanish expression (and since I am usually sneezing profusely whenever I see them, they end up saying it a lot).

Allah hamdillah

Bill3000 said:

I'm going to have to agree. It should be extended to coughing. Perhaps the devil gives you lung cancer?

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Nearly right..The devil runs "big tobacco" and sells you cigarettes..to give you lung cancer

I personally say "gersundheit" as I feel it inappropriate for me ,a non believer, to "bless" anyone.

It should be extended to coughing, but it's not! Oh well! I won't go around saying "Bless you!" to coughs because that's silly.

As far as I know, you don't say jack when somebody sneezes in China. For that matter, probably all of Asia. You know they sneezed; so what? Although in Japan, when you sneeze, it means somebody's talking about you, and in China, it means somebody's thinking of you...

And in French you say "A tes/vos souhait!" which means "To your wishes!", and when he sneezes again you say "A tes/vos amours", which means "To your loves!"

Woo, useless trivia. =)

I'm gonna extend it to hiccups too!

It's "Na zdrowie" in Polish, which is coincidentally (or not), the same thing as you say for "cheers".

It means "for your health!"

Hey now. A sneeze is blowing crap out of your body at something like 100mph. A cough is nothing like that. So we should really restrict the uber-blessings of our Lord to those things which just might result in a part of the lung coming up.

Maybe instead of a trinity God is a quadranity.. and the fourth part of God blesses people when they sneeze.

Ever think of that? huh? what do you think of that?

Who cares?

I refuse to react on people sneezing and I refuse to aknowledge the "gesundheit" by saying "thank you". It helped. Most people stopped doing it.

What about farting?

Yeah, I've known since about the 3rd grade that it comes from some African culture that believes evil spirits go up your nose when you sneeze, or something like that. People expect it, and it's 'rude' or socially 'cold' if you don't say it.

But I guess everyone thinks they are an ordained minister, capable of banishing evil spirits.

I dunno. There's so many things I don't get. Don't get me started.

Ziggy Stardust said:

I refuse to react on people sneezing and I refuse to aknowledge the "gesundheit" by saying "thank you". It helped. Most people stopped doing it.

What about farting?

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I give them a mark out of ten, with tips.

"A six, perhaps a six-point-five. The damp reverb was good but there was no sustain worth mentioning."

I never say that to anyone, and no one ever says that to me. Their afraid I'll rip their balls of because I'm an atheist or something.....

But then again I live in India and I don't think there's such a thing here anyway.

GinandTonic said:

I give them a mark out of ten, with tips.

"A six, perhaps a six-point-five. The damp reverb was good but there was no sustain worth mentioning."

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I think an 8+ would warrant a Bless you.

Feargal Sharkie said it best when he said:
A good fart these days is hard to find.

I believe it should also be said when someone passes gas.

I don't say 'bless you' when someone sneezes, and nor do most people I know; the ones that do do it inconsistently.

I don't think it courtesy, or acknowledging someone else's suffering. I don't find sneezing that unpleasant (although hayfever as a whole is). It's merely an archaic response.