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Permalink Reply by luvtheheaven on April 4, 2010 at 11:21pm

I never have ever said anything when people sneeze either. It doesn't bother me. What *does* bother me is when I coughed like 40 times in 1 class period in 10th grade and someone said "Bless you" to me every time, which annoyed me because I was coughing and they thought i was sneezing and also because it was drawing extra attention to my coughs and embarrassing me and then I didn't know if I should say "thank you" or "I wasn't sneezing" or just stay silent and it was a tough decision. LMAO. But yeah. People don't mean anything religious by it, just like when you say "damn it" you're not actually thinking about whether or not hell exists and if God has the power to damn the... "situation" you're in? LOL. Most of the time when people say "damn it" it makes no logical sense.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on December 17, 2010 at 1:20pm

That's why I use Gesundheit! I had German grandparents so I have to thank them for teaching that one word so I could at least avoid the other.

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Permalink Reply by scLovely on February 23, 2011 at 2:11am

I leer at people if they bless me when I sneeze. Then I proceed to tell them how stupid it is that a sneeze has anything to do with religion. How dare they assume that I want their god to bless me hehe :D

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Permalink Reply by T A A on March 5, 2011 at 11:25pm

Bless you was never part of my vocab. In French "À vos souhaits" (may your wishes come true). In English, I just could never use the word bless, it just bugs me too much, so I've always used the German "Gesundheit" (health) as a tribute to partial germanic origins of the English language :)

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on March 10, 2011 at 2:23pm

I use the German word for it - Gesundheit which means toward health. My Grandfather always said it so it just sort of stuck with me. A lot of people say it means health, good health, and a few others I've heard but my Grandmother told me it was used during the plagues as a gesture for people that were sick to turn towards health. She never explained it any further then that. Mainly because her English was bad and my German was fare worse.

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Permalink Reply by Maske on March 10, 2011 at 4:23pm

Oh yeah - that's one of my favourite stories.

 

In the time of the plague, when there was very little in the way of medical care, one of the first signs of infection in people was a sneeze. Of course, sneezes happened for many reasons, but they also happened when you were getting sick with the plague. So if you were hanging out with your mate, and they sneezed, I imagine the blood would rush from your head as you realised he'd be gone in a week, and various forms of 'health' or 'bless you' would utter forth. The bless you part, so the story goes, was because some believed the plague was caused by demons in your blood. Medieval folks, such a laugh.

 

Anyway, we get another popular part of kiddie culture from that story:

 

Ring o'ring o'Rosie

A pocket full of posies (flowers, which ppl carried around to mask the smell of death)

A'tissue! A'tissue! (See above paragraph)

We all fall down. (Glum, huh?)

 

As for gesundheit, the Afrikaans has a derivative: Gesondheid. It literally translates as health. Or the state of being healthy. Like 'apartheid' was the state of being apart.

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Permalink Reply by Lilla Bertalan on March 7, 2010 at 6:53pm

i sometimes use "jesus!" as an exclamation of horror, like my grandma used to, though i try to wean off it. also, i seem to have a weird liking of symbols and runes... but i don't know if i ectually believe in them as well.

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Permalink Reply by Shanika on April 21, 2010 at 12:17pm

Yeah I do this too.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on April 23, 2010 at 2:20pm

Why don't you try using my particular favorite "HOLY SHIT!!!" Instead... because, afterall... it fits... and no theist will be offended either. lol

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Permalink Reply by Jason Wagner on March 7, 2010 at 7:59pm

I feel weird when I say "I am blessed" when expressing gratefulness. Other than that, nothing really. My atheism is well known.

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Permalink Reply by Galen on March 7, 2010 at 8:44pm

I rather enjoy the "taking the lord's name in vain" stuff. As a religious person, it was such a huge no-no to say "goddamn" or "Jesus fucking Christ!" that I feel liberated in saying it now. So I say it often :)

My "sin" could be that I still live in a house with a crucifix hanging on the wall in almost every room. I don't even notice the religious stuff in the house (wife is Catholic), but I suppose if somebody visited me it would be hard to believe that an atheist lives here!

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Permalink Reply by Pinko Commie on March 7, 2010 at 9:07pm

I used to collect rosaries when I was a kid because I thought they were really pretty and I still have a few. Maybe that might be frowned upon? But I don't see things like crosses and rosaries as necessarily religious items and nothing else, I see them as artistic artifacts of a belief that some might consider real/holy while others consider it mythology.

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