Throughout the English-speaking world, “Bless you” is regularly followed by a sneeze. It’s instinctive and we deliver it without knowing where the phrase came from or how long we’ve been saying it.
Sneezing may seem like an insignificant side effect of climate change right now, as parts of the world burn and July 2023 ends up being the hottest month on record, but climate change has been proven to cause Allergies increase.
Higher levels of carbon dioxide and increased temperatures have been shown to cause plants to produce more pollen and start the pollen season earlier.
Research by William Anderg, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Utah, shows a sharp increase in North American pollen between 1990 and 2018. Concentrations have increased by about 20% and the “allergy season” has also started almost three weeks earlier. The increase was most pronounced in the southeastern and midwestern parts of the United States, although it was increasing nationwide.
More allergies, more sneezing, more pleasant.
The real reason why we bless people after a sneeze goes back to before we understood what a sneeze meant as well as we do today. In fact, for a long time, sneezing was considered an act of “divine grace.”
For European Christians, when the first plague that weakened the present-day Christian Roman Empire, around 590, Pope Gregory the Great believed that sneezing was an early sign of plague, so he instructed Christians to respond to sneezing with blessings. David Myers, of Fordham University, told the New York Times. This was Pope Gregory’s order, which is widely known as the beginning of the blessing after a sneeze.
But other answers to sneezing – Gesundheit, in German. Salud, in Spanish — came from the idea that a sneeze was a sign of divine benevolence, Myers continued.
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At first, “God bless” was more common, but people are increasingly shortening it to a more secular two-word alternative.
Because, the real reason we still say congratulations today is simply because it’s considered polite. Or, as Farley calls it, “the emotion of wisdom.” We’ve been taught to do it, we’ve heard it before, and for most of us, it’s good to say and hear.
