2001: Replying After a Sneeze Jun 7, 2020

Sneezing is universal, but what's done after is (s)not. In much of the anglophone world, "G-d bless you" after a sneeze is common, but considering this is not done for other things like coughing, it might just seem like a cultural quirk. It is, however, credited to St. Gregory the Great in the early 7th century, though that said, the non-Christian Romans also had a virtually equivalent phrase, 'absit omen' (evil be gone!); the ancient Greeks had a similar custom.
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