One of the many ways you can tell that humanity has evolved incorrectly is that there’s no real custom for how to react when someone coughs. Mostly people just ignore it. If someone’s really hacking up a lung, you might hear “Are you okay?” or “Do you want a glass of water?” But generally, there is no accepted phrase or expression.
This is in direct opposition to the sneeze, which immediately generates any one of several predetermined social responses--despite not being all that different from a cough in terms of noise or its overall disturbance factor.
That’s why you may hear very different responses to each:
SNEEZE: “Bless you!”
COUGH: “Get the hell away from me, germfarm. If you get me sick before I can attend my kid’s violin recital tonight, I’m sending a virus along with your next budget spreadsheet.”
The reason for the whole “Bless You” convention when sneezing (or “gesundheit") is from the time of the 1918 flu pandemic. Clearly, coughing is a problem for transferring disease, but the sneeze is a slightly more powerful weapon…
Whenever someone sneezed, their health was toasted out of concern for them dying from flu.
I thought it was some sort of superstition thing...when you sneeze you open up something or another and that lets bad spirits enter your body, so you say ‘bless you’ to ward them off.
Sneeze: Gesundheit!
Cough: Verdammte, haben sie TB?
along the same lines, no one says much when you fart either… funny, that.
The ironic part is that the sneeze is much more germ-laden than the cough, but yet people are blessed when they do it in company.
I boycot the “bless you”. I’ve decided that the sneeze deserves no more acknowledgement than any other noise, so I ignore it. Some people consider that impolite or are superstitious and will make a show of blessing themselves and sending me the stink eye. Those are, of course, the types who I really don’t wish any blessings on, which just reinforces my feelings on the matter.
I like to offer a cheerful “Sputum!” along the lines of “Skol!” or “Salut!” It works for both forms of respiratory backflux. You might also try, “need that lung back?” - that one is good for public transportation.
Papa Goose, Ich bin der grobte Ventilator.
(So much better than “Robitussin!")
At work, we have a rule (not that the managers are aware of this rule)
Anyone sneezing 4 times in a row is allowed to go home.
on the 3rd sneeze someone always says
“one more and you get to go home!”
which immediately stops the sneezing fit
Heh heh. Apparently I have a sneeze-like cough, because usually when I cough, people say, “Bless you!” I’ve given up trying to correct them. I just enjoy the rare privilege of getting bless on all occasiona. Ahhh..
You didn’t write a birthday post, but: Happy Birthday, Greg!
I have caught myself giving a cougher the stink eye on more than one occasion. It’s almost an unconscious reaction. Oh, and hey, congrats on being (slightly) older sometime recently.
Happy Birthday is what I meant to say
Excellent point, and made oh-so-hilariously.
I taught my students to say ‘Bless you!’ when someone sneezed one year and an entire class got it wrong. I didn’t find that out until a couple of weeks later, when I caught a cold and ended up with a persistent cough. Every time I coughed the entire class blessed me. Loudly.
I probably should have corrected them, but I didn’t. If you ever clear your throat and get blessed by a passing Japanese person it’s probably my fault. Sorry.