Bless you

Whenever someone sneezes you say “bless you” or hear someone say these words.

Why? Why are these words spoken?

• It’s used to wish a person blessings in various situations especially as a response to a sneeze and also when parting or writing a valediction.

When? When did this saying originate?

• By the AD 590 as an outbreak of the bubonic plague was reaching Rome.

How? How did this saying originate?

• At the time sneezing was thought to an early symptom of the plague. The blessing became a common effort to halt the disease. Some have offered an explanation suggesting that people once held the folk belief that a person’s soul could be thrown from their body when they sneezed, that sneezing otherwise opened the body to invasion by the devil or evil spirits, or that sneezing was the body’s effort to force out an invading evil presence. In cases, “god bless you or bless you is used as a sort of shield against evil.

Where? Where did this saying originate?

• This happened in Rome during the plague was occurring.