Bless you is a common English expression used to wish a person well after sneezing. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A sneeze is the semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the nose. ...

Origins

There are many theories regarding the origin of this custom. One well known and strongly believed theory is that it began as a blessing near the start of the Plague of Justinian or one of the more minor plagues which followed with the words of Pope Gregory the Great. Crowds took to the streets praying to God and when a person sneezed they were immediately blessed God bless you! for fear that they may be developing symptoms of the plague. A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom. ... The Plague of Justinian (541-542) is the first known pandemic on record, and it also marks the first firmly recorded pattern of bubonic plague. ... Gregory I Pope Saint Gregory I or Gregory the Great (called the Dialogist in Eastern Orthodoxy) (c. ... Image:Http://www. ... The term symptom (from the Greek syn = con/plus and pipto = fall, together meaning co-exist) has two similar meanings in the context of physical and mental health: A symptom can be a physical condition which shows that one has a particular illness or disorder (see e. ...

Superstition

Many of the other theories are based on superstitions and urban legends about sneezing and what a sneeze entails. Some well known superstitions that may have brought the phrase bless you into common use are: Superstition is a set of behaviors that may be faith based, or related to magical thinking, whereby the practitioner believes that the future, or the outcome of certain events, can be influenced by certain of his or her behaviors. ... Urban Legend is also the name of a 1998 movie. ...

• The heart stops when you sneeze (it doesn't), and the phrase bless you was 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 was 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 was 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. The heart and lungs, from an older edition of Grays Anatomy. ... Evil is a term describing that which is regarded as morally bad, intrinsically corrupt, wantonly destructive, inhumane, or wicked. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Another urban legend states that you cannot open your eyes while you sneeze, or if you manage to your eyes will pop out. This is, as stated, nothing more than an urban legend.

Earliest use

Contrary to the previously mentioned theories, the use of the phrase bless you or god bless you can be seen in literature mentioned long before it supposedly came into common use in English. Literature is literally acquaintance with letters as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning an individual written character (letter)). The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction...

"Bless you, my dear!" he said, and "bless you, bless you!" at the second and third sneeze. Apuleius, Golden Ass, AD 150

Dick cannot blow his nose whene'er he pleases, His nose so long is, and his arm so short; Nor ever cries, God bless me! when he sneezes - He cannot hear so distant a report. Greek Anthology, c. AD 500

Thus, we are left with a little bit of a mystery, as the examples predate the explanations. Lucius Apuleius (c. ... The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, referred to as The Golden Ass (Asinus aureus) by Augustine, is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. ... Centuries: 1st century - 2nd century - 3rd century Decades: 100s - 110s - 120s - 130s - 140s - 150s - 160s - 170s - 180s - 190s - 200s 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 Events and trends Significant people Antoninus Pius, Roman Emperor (138-161) Categories: 150s ... Greek Anthology (also Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Ancient and Byzantine periods of Greek Literature. ... For other uses, see number 500. ...

Modern use

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

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. Burping, also known as belching, ructus or eructation, is the release of gas from the digestive tract (mainly esophagus and stomach) through the mouth. ... Farting redirects here. ...

References

1. Opie, Iona, and Moira Tatum. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1992. ISBN 0-19-282916-5