When someone sneezes...

[Whiggles]

I rarely say anything. Usually I wait for them to say "excuse me".

[Sickywicky]

However, I believe that geshundheit means something akin to "god bless you."

Gesundheit(German) means as Gezondheid(Dutch) roughly translated "Good Health" I'm hundred percent sure since I'm dutch,dutch looks a bit like german and I speak a bit of german too. ;)

[WarLocke]

Personally, I always try to suppress my sneezes and keep them confined to my sinuses and nasal cavities. I figure this will either keep from offending people, or make my head explode so I don't have to worry about it.

Actually, I know a kid who did the same thing in grade school. Larry would always pinch his nose closed before he sneezed, and one day in the middle of class he popped his eardrum doing it.

That's what I remember happening, anyway. It was something like 15 years ago, so I may be wrong.

As for me, I usually just ignore sneezers. I'm no priest, I don't do blessings. :lol:

- WL

[Yan]

Actually 'Gesundheit' is just the german word for 'health'. So when you say 'Gesundheit' after someone sneezes you are actually wishing him health - or in other words hoping that he'll get better. :)

Yan

[Artega]

I generally say "Gesundheit".

I'm somewhere aroung being an agnostic person, so I don't say the "traditional" phrase. IIRC, there was an old children's fable or tale or whatever they're called that dealed with a thief and Satan attending a wedding. Satan made a deal with the thief to steal the bride's soul. Satan hid under the table and would step on the foot of the bride, causing her to sneeze. At this, the thief was supposed to yell something along the lines of "The Devil take your soul!" Instead of saying that phrase, he would say "God Bless you!" or something like that. Eventually Satan grew tired of the game, and revealed the location of the thief. The thief, in turn, revealed Satan and chased him around with some kind of whip or switch and proceeded to banish him to wherever. It was in one of those huge (like 3,000-page) children's stories anthologies.