God bless you

[mtbc]

If people sneeze then it feels polite to say bless you but also so very silly. I don't think they're at risk of lethal plague or cardiac arrest or soul displacement or anything else popularly thought to relate to the sense of the wish and I suspect nobody else does either. It also sounds a bit impolitely imperative in any brief form. Am I interpreting the response wrongly? Has it a worthy successor?

Comments

[mst3kmoxie]

We could finally put Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion for the proper response to answering a telephone to use.

Person #1: *sneeze*
Person #2: Ahoy!

:-)

[emperor]

I think it's Just What One Does, one of those Being Polite things that has long since floated free from the conceptual moorings whence it was launched.

[mtbc]

A friend also points out that blessing might be good and at worst is not bad.