War On Common Courtesy of the Day: Steve Cuckovich, a Northern California teacher, has banned the customary post-sneeze response “bless you” from his health class.
Cuckovich told ABC 30 Action News that, despite what some might think, this isn’t an anti-religion thing — it’s an antediluvian thing.
“When you sneezed in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body,” says Cuckovich. “So they were saying, ‘god bless you’ for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, I said what you’re doing doesn’t really make any sense anymore.”
For a while, Cuckovich was even subtracting points from the tests of students who would flout the ban, but parents complained so he stopped.
[kfsn.]
