The traditional response to noticing another person sneeze has never worked well for me. Why would I invoke the name of a deity in such a situation?

Even if a such deity actually existed, why would he/she/it/they care about someone sneezing? Path dependance explains a lot of things we do and the “God Bless You” people often say (often with a concerned look) is one of those many things we do merely because we’ve always done it that way.

COVID-19 has made our concerns about sneezing much more legitimate. I noticed this yesterday while I was outside in my backyard (alone) eating pretzels. I had a mouthful of pretzel when I had a strong urge to sneeze came upon me. Maybe God made me do it. I didn’t hold back, even with my mouth filled with mostly-chewed pretzel. It was a world class sneeze, I can proudly say, but it was also a science experiment. I watched as the pretzel particles sprayed several feet from me. If I were contagious, that would have been pretzels AND COVID-19 micro-particles and I assume that the virus would have sprayed even much farther than the pretzel dust. This was a visual reminder that it is good advice to sneeze into your elbow these days, if you can’t hold back your sneeze while with others.

I’ve had long been puzzled about the traditional sneeze response (“God bless you”). A bit of research today showed me that the phrase might have first been uttered around 600 A.D. to try to protect people from the plague.  For many years, however, we’ve used that same expression when there was no fear of any plague.

In modern pre-COVID times, however, the phrase has been an overly-quaint response to a perfectly natural and harmless bodily action, especially around allergy season. Sneezing is one of those fascinating complex series of coordinated actions that our bodies do (along with swallowing, vomiting, and orgasms) where our animal bodies seem to take on a life of their own for a short period, independent of our control once they reach the point of no return.

But what, exactly, is it that a God would supposedly do by “blessing” me following a sneeze? The obvious answer (it would seem) is to help me to stop sneezing in the future. Armed with this speculative conclusion a few years ago, I asked my nephew Dan whether he could help me with a new logical yet pretentious thing to say to a person who just sneezed. Dan had recently majored in Latin as well as computer science. His suggestion was to say: “Consiste sternuere!” He assured me that this phrase is Latin for “Stop sneezing!”  If you say this phrase with a stern face, carefully pronouncing each syllable, it might appear (to certain credulous people) that you are saying something useful and that you might even be wielding other-worldly powers.

If you are interested in joining me to help to make this new cutting edge expression viral, simply utter “Consiste sternuere!” instead of “God bless you.” It is pronounced. ConSIStay stern-you-AIR-eh.

Thank you, Nephew Dan.