I beg (urp) your pardon (achoo!)

I wrote not too long ago about my annoyance with the social convention that demands a verbal response from bystanders when someone sneezes. Just as we properly fail to comment when our friends and coworkers make other kinds of unprompted nasal or oral outbursts -- like snorting or saying “hi” -- so too should we mind our own business for the sneeze.

The most common response always seemed a little presumptuous to me anyway. “God bless” sounds too much like an order to the deity. He’s supposed to stop whatever grand enterprise He might be involved in so He can heed your command to bless Bob from accounting simply because he (Bob) had an irritation of the nasal passage that caused a sudden, forceful expulsion of air and God knows what else? Even the most focused of us has to concentrate when creating worlds or smiting errant Methodists; we don’t need to be distracted by requests for trivial blessings, especially when we all know that Bob makes it louder than he has to just because he craves attention.

Saying “God bless” is second nature to many of us, yet would other cultures similarly demand their gods do such casual bidding? Can you imagine hearing “Shiva, hand me that stapler,” or “Yahweh, tell that guy to knock off the humming”? I don’t think so.

If we’re all going to agree that spontaneous eruptions from the mouth or nose need some kind of acknowledgment, let’s at least be consistent and come up with some standards that make a little bit of sense. I think I’m as competent as anyone to start the discussion.

For sneezing, I proposed we switch over completely to the more secular “Gesundheit.” I believe that translates from the German to “good health,” which is probably too late to hope for if the cold germs are already in the trachea but seems like a nice sentiment anyway.

For coughing, I think we should say “Schadenfreude.” Again, turning to the Germanic tradition feels appropriate and, since the translation has to do with taking delight in the failure of others more successful than you, a certain bitterness is properly communicated.

For hiccupping, I would suggest something along the lines of “Sorry you’ve had a convulsive gasp caused by the involuntary contraction of the diaphragm. Let’s agree that it won’t happen again.”

For burping, let’s go with “Jacksonian democracy.” Admittedly it makes no sense, but it should at least prompt a change of subject to 19th century American history. I think we also need to acknowledge the pause in conversation you’ll sometimes detect when someone just barely manages to suppress a burp. Your boss says “I really think that in order to cut costs further we’re going to have to (pause, slight puffing of jowls and slight lowering of jaw) lay off our entire workforce and outsource our production to Chimp Haven, the retirement home for lab monkeys” and you’re thinking “Wow, that was a close one; I should probably say something.” That something should be “jubilee.”

For yawning, no response should be required unless the yawn is accompanied by an audible sound. If it is, let me propose either “need a nap?” or the equally appropriate “please close your mouth as soon as possible.”

For throat clearing, keep in mind that this is usually done as a preface to an interruption, so a good reply might be “what the hell do you want?” If instead, a true backup of phlegm was actually involved and the “ahem” was sincere, say nothing but instead evacuate the area immediately.

For chewing gum in such an insistent manner as to cause a cracking sound, we should say (into the nearest 911-enabled telephone) “The nature of my emergency is that my friend has apparently swallowed Bubble Wrap.”

For sniffing or sniffling, like when you’re try to get air through a slightly congested sinus, I’m tempted to suggest the caustic “Oh, boo-hoo, what a baby” but that seems a little harsh, even to me. I think I’ll recommend tactful silence unless – and this is a very important exception – the sniff is accompanied by a high-pitched tweet, which should prompt the response “There seems to be a bird in your nose; let’s join together to kill it.”

Nose-blowing, even the most subtle variety, is an abomination that I can’t believe is sanctioned in polite company. Considering that it’s far less spontaneous than other expulsions – the blower even premeditates (if we’re lucky) his or her move by producing a hanky – it should not be tolerated, much less tacitly endorsed with a friendly comment. Nose-blowing should only be done under the care of a healthcare professional on an in-patient basis at the nearest major medical center, or at least not in the same room as me.

Horking, mostly done by cats trying to expel a hairball though occasionally heard from elderly gentlemen, should be met with the Spanish phrase “se me olvido me cuaderno,” or, literally, “I forgot my notebook.”

I think I’ve provided an adequate framework for the transition from our current methods of recognizing these outbursts to something much more fair and equitable. I realize that there may be some categories I haven’t covered, in particular those hybrid explosions that combine two or more of the above-defined events: the sneef (sneeze + cough), the curp (cough + burp), the york (yawn + hork) and the never-documented but often-theorized snickup (sniffle + hiccup). But I can’t both create and manage this new system, and will have to rely on the good sense of average citizens to take it to the next level if that’s what’s needed.

I don’t want to appoint a Language Czar to oversee my plans though, if necessary, I understand George W. Bush may soon be available.

Blessed are the annoyed

Blessing seems to be a big part of life in the South. I’m usually glad I decided to live in a region where the weather is decent, the people are friendly and the economy – at least as of ten minutes ago when I last checked the financial pages – was somewhat healthy. Whether or not I’m “blessed” to be living here, I’m not sure. I made some overt choices that got me to where I sit this morning in a coffee shop just off Interstate 77, and “blessing” seems to imply that I simply fell off a passing truck and was fortunate to roll down the off-ramp to a comfortable table in front of a bagel and coffee.

I guess the obsession with blessings in this part of the country is rooted in the Bible Belt traditions most of my fellow Southerners subscribe to. Surely God had something to do with our fate being what it is. His invisible hand -- or “Hand” (I always forget how those spiritual capitalization rules work) -- guided me to this acceptable position of a fifty-something sorta-corporate type hanging on to a half-decent job and semi-comfortable lifestyle. I know I’m a lot better off than the guy I passed landscaping the shrubs on my way in here, but surely not enough to be blessed.

For example, the whole sneeze commentary thing bothers me a lot. Whenever I’m in public, and especially when I’m at work, if I feel the urge to sneeze I have to suppress the outburst or else endure the hail of “bless you’s” that rain down all around me. Maybe my family was too impolite to teach me this social convention, but it’s not one I’ve ever practiced and it embarrasses me to become a late-adapter at this stage in my life. I’m usually able to stifle the sneeze sufficiently to keep anyone from hearing. I hope it’s an urban legend that you can give yourself a cerebral hemorrhage by doing this, though that too would probably prompt a comment.

What is it exactly you’re supposed to say when your sneeze is blessed? “Whoa, thanks”, is usually about the best I can manage. A more definitive “thank you” might encourage a chorus of “you’re welcome’s”, and then I’m back to where I started, wondering if and how I’m supposed to respond further. Other options like “Woo – I think I might be coming down with something” or “I hope I didn’t get any of that on you” seem to be offering more information than anybody really wants.

I once worked with someone who waited till everyone else had said their “bless you’s” and then upstaged them all with a “God bless you”. It seemed like an unnecessary attempt to place his and God’s blessings a level above those of mere mortals. I suppose that should elicit a “thank you both” response, assuming he came from a monotheistic tradition, which I think Catholicism still is.

The only time I really feel required to offer some word of note on another person’s sudden, involuntary expulsion of micro-mucus is when I’m in a one-on-one situation with the sneezer. One of my carpool companions let one rip the other day and the silence that followed was more than I could bear. I tried out what I thought was an acceptable alternative – “gesunheidt” – but I don’t think it had the same affect. He looked at me curiously and then nearly rear-ended the semi in front of us.

Aside from the sneeze blessings, the other one we hear a lot around here is “bless his/her heart”. It’s really only the most rural of us that have the nerve to use this phrase in everyday conversation. Most of my coworkers have at least some non-Southern strain in them, or at least enough to avoid this condescending remark. Among those who do use it, the phrase is always intoned with sympathy even when meant with the most malice possible. They’d use it equally on someone who just stumbled over a vacuum cleaner cord and on Lee Harvey Oswald after he’d been gunned down by Jack Ruby. It implies that if only a particular organ could be rendered subject to the grace of the Almighty, that this person wouldn’t be such a poor excuse for a human being. I’ve always contended that the Yankee equivalent to “bless his heart” was something along the lines of “what an idiot!”, though that might be a bit harsh. Heart-blessing seems to imply that there’s a well-intentioned incompetence involved, which I can understand after meeting some of the Southerners I’ve come across.

One last use of the word that I’ve encountered recently came from a particularly mediocre one of my coworkers. This is a fellow I trained to be an inspector of others people’s work; his job is to review their output, find their errors and then indicate in writing how to fix them. Most of the errors he’s charged with finding are related to language usage, so you can imagine my concern when on the third day of his training, we learned that he couldn’t spell. “Oh, I’ve always been a bad speller,” he said in that tone of pride you hear only Americans employ when discussing how piss-poor they are at math, science or other academic disciplines. I huddled quickly with management after this discovery and, as is typical of the interpretation of work ethic at my company, they decided that it was more important that he showed up on time every day than know how to spell. He started as a temporary worker but has since showed up well enough to earn a full-time position.

Anyway, when anybody walks up to Mike and asks how he is, his response is always “I’m blessed.” Not “fine”, not “good”, not “here” or “great” or “HIV-positive” or anything else you might normally expect as a response. I take it he’s a very religious guy and views every life experience he encounters with a full appreciation for all the good and bad and wondrous and pedestrian that it brings. And so, he regards himself as “blessed”.

Some might contend, however, that he’s an idiot.