"Bless you"

Whenever someone sneezes, you say "Bless you" or hear someone else say these words.

The phrase "God bless you" is attributed to Pope 

Gregory The Great 

 who uttered it in the sixth 

century during a bubonic plague epidemic 

(sneezing is an obvious symptom of one form of 

the plague). For the most part, the various sneeze 

responses originated from ancient superstitions. 

Some people believed that a sneeze causes the 

soul to escape the body through the nose. Saying

 "bless you" would stop the devil from claiming 

the person's freed soul. Others believed the 

opposite: that evil spirits use the sneeze as an

 opportunity to enter a person's body. There was

also the misconception that 

the heart momentarily stops during a sneeze (it 

doesn't), and that saying "bless you" was a way of 

welcoming the person back to life