Gesundheit!!
by 4mylove 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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choosing life
I used to say gesundheit even as a witness. It is German and just means good health to you. It was my replacement for bless you because of the witness prohibition of that phrase.
It really all sounds so silly now.
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4mylove
choosing life,
I agree with the sillyness. It all seems very comical sometimes. Skirts and dresses only in the Kingdom hall, then put your pants on and go to the club and drop it like it's hot!
Or, don't celebrate christmas, but accept all the goodies that those around you give you.
Or for example, they can go into photography, and provide this service for good money for baptisms, weddings in other denominations, and even hispanic quinceaneras, but condemn them anywhere else.
Just hate the hypocracy.
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tresdecu
Any German witnesses here?
Can they say 'gesundheit'? Or did the JW superstition span the ocean and the language barrier?
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Homerovah the Almighty
Gesundheit means bless you, it was spoken with empathy to the person who is sneezing as such to make the good spirits overwhelm and take away any bad spirits
the individual may carry, as in medieval times diseases were thought to be causes by bad spirits entering ones body.
This might be a more modern interpretation if you will..........at least from my own ancestral German background
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chickpea
using InterTran free translation services
gesundheit translates to: health, healthiness, fitness, salubriousness, sanity, wholesomeness
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*** g90 6/8 p. 23 Hold That Sneeze? ***
“Bless You!”
In many lands it is a custom for those standing nearby to say “bless you” to the person who sneezes. Where did such a custom originate?
According to the book How Did It Begin? by R. Brasch, some ancients believed that when a man sneezed, he was nearest to death. Brasch adds: “The fear was based on an erroneous but widely held notion. Man’s soul was considered to be the essence of life. The fact that dead men never breathed led to the fallacious deduction that his soul must be breath. . . . It is thus not surprising that from the earliest days people learned to respond to a sneeze with apprehension and the fervent wish to the sneezer that God may help and bless him and preserve his life. Somehow in medieval times this early origin of the custom must have been forgotten because it was Pope Gregory the Great who was credited with having introduced the saying ‘God bless you,’ to anyone who sneezed.”
The same in German:
*** g90 8. 6. S. 23 Sollte man das Niesen zurückhalten? ***
„Helfgott“ [Dito „Gesundheit“]
In vielen Ländern ist es Brauch, „Helfgott!“ oder etwas Ähnliches zu sagen, wenn in der Nähe jemand niest. Woher kommt dieser Brauch?
Gemäß dem Buch Dreimal Schwarzer Kater von R. Brasch glaubte man in früheren Zeiten, jemand, der niese, sei dem Tod ganz nahe. In dem Buch heißt es: „Diese Befürchtung beruhte auf einer irrigen, aber weitverbreiteten Vorstellung. Die Seele des Menschen wurde als sein Lebensgeist angesehen. Die Tatsache, daß tote Menschen nicht mehr atmen, führte zu dem Trugschluß, daß der Atem mit der Seele identisch sei. . . . Daher überrascht es nicht, daß die Menschen von frühesten Zeiten an das Niesen mit bösen Vorahnungen beobachteten und dem Wunsch Ausdruck gaben, Gott möge dem, der niest, helfen und sein Leben erhalten. Irgendwann im Mittelalter muß der alte Brauch in Vergessenheit geraten sein, denn es wurde Papst Gregor dem Großen zugeschrieben, den Ausspruch ‚Helf Gott!‘ nach dem Niesen eingeführt zu haben.“
Sorry - This article was published only in German:
Erwachet 22.2.1984
p. 29
Jehova's witnesses practice just the same a primitive superstition if they avoid such customs.
With kind regards from Germany + -
blondie
*** g99 10/22 p. 3 Superstitions—How Widespread Today? ***
Superstitions—HowWidespreadToday?IT HAPPENS everywhere—at work, at school, on public transportation, and on the street. You sneeze, and people you’ve never met, mere passersby, say: "God bless you" or simply "Bless you." There are similar expressions in many languages. In German the response is "Gesundheit." Arabs say "YarhamakAllah," and some South Pacific Polynesians say "Tiheimauriora."
*** g00 6/8 p. 30 From Our Readers ***
Superstition As a linguist, I must bring to your attention an error in the October 22, 1999, Awake! In the series "Superstitions—Why So Dangerous?" you inferred that the German word gesundheit is a way of saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes. The English translation of the word is "health."
C. C., United States
We
didnotmeantoimplythat"gesundheit"wastheexacttranslationoftheEnglishexpression.Itwaslisted,alongwithtwootherforeign-languageexpressions,asbeing"similar"inusagetotheEnglishexpression"Godblessyou."—ED.
