"Do you know how helpless you feel if you have a full cup of coffee in your hand and you start to sneeze?" -- JEAN KERR
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- While standing in a long line at the Bank of America ATM machine in Jackson Heights, Queens on Thursday morning (a Thanksgiving day, November 24, in the United States), I sneezed twice.
An elderly Latina woman in front of me turned her back and sighed, "God bless you."
"Thank you," I replied.
"Today is what day, honey?" she snapped back with a smile. "Ah Thursday. Something better will happen to you because you sneezed on Thursday. If it's Friday, you sneeze for sorrow."
She continued: If I sneeze on Wednesday, I will receive a letter. On Tuesday, I kiss a stranger. On Monday, I sneeze for danger. On Saturday, I see my lover tomorrow. On Sunday, the devil will have me for the rest of the week. Oh lala.
She was being superstitious. I don't believe in superstition but I thanked her nevertheless.
PUBLIC
In the bus, train, shopping centers, coffee shops, among other public places, I sneezed in the past and people were apt to say, "God bless you" or the German expression, "Gesundheit," or the Italian word, "Felicita."
In the old practice, they would clasp their hands and bow toward the one who sneezed, which is popular in Near and Far East until today.
The custom of asking God's blessing started when early man believed that the essence of life--the spirit or soul--was in the form of air and breath and resided in one's head, according to authors Claudia De Lys and Julie Forsyth Bachelor.
A sneeze might accidentally expel the spirit for a short time or even forever, unless God prevented it. The act of bowing toward the sneezer was also reportedly counter-magic. For it meant, "May your soul not escape."
SPIRITS
There were some ancients who believed that evil spirits which had previously entered the body jumped out when one sneezed. This meant danger to others for such spirits might now enter their bodies.
So the expression or blessing was to protect others as well as the one who sneezed. So serious was a sneezed considered in the Middle Ages that even today people speak of certain situations as "not to be sneezed at."
We know today that a sneeze is one of our unconscious reflexes. However, medical men consider it almost as harmful to others as some of the primitive people did, explained Lys and Bachelor.
For, instead of "evil spirits," sneezing expels harmful bacteria and is one of the most effective ways of spreading disease. So our best counter-charm, say the doctors, is to cover a sneeze with a handkerchief so our germs won't jump down someone else's throat.
