Goodbye and Bless You!
The holy origins of common expressions
Today, we’re investigating the origins of two very common, throwaway phrases that I know you use all the time. But where do they come from? As so often in English, religion is involved.
Bless you
Aa-choo!
Bless you!
Why do we say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes?
It’s not a universal thing to do. If you go to China or Japan, they’ll look at you oddly if you bless them for sneezing.
But in Western societies, ‘bless you’ or something related is our automatic reaction. Some of us, being busy people with no time to spare, even reduce it down to just ‘bless’. Which is kind of odd, but hey, that’s English.
Even the ancient Greeks and Romans and the Hindu and Zulu languages have a fairly similar phrase they use when someone sneezes.
- In Greece and Rome, they’d say ‘banish the omen’. There is evidence that ancient Romans actually saluted someone when they sneezed, although the reasons why remain a mystery.
- In Hindi, it’s ‘Live,’ to which the sneezer responds ‘with you’.
- In Zulu, you would apparently say ‘I am now blessed,’ although I wouldn’t be feeling too blessed if someone sneezed at me.
