Faye in Marshfield, Vermont, grew up hearing sneezing to the truth after someone sneezed, a family expression with Yiddish roots. It comes from גענאָסן צום אמת (often spelled in Latin characters as a phrase rendered as genosn tsum emes and pronounced “geh NAWS en tsoom EH mess”) or גענאָסן אויפֿן אמת (genosn oyfn emes), both meaning, roughly, the sneeze confirms the truth: if one person sneezes while another is speaking, the sneeze counts as evidence that the statement is true. The fancy English term is sternutation, also covered in an earlier discussion of sneezing and sneezing fits. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Saying “The Sneeze Confirmed the Truth” After Someone Sneezes”
In an earlier show we were talking about sternutation, that is sneezing, and that prompted Faye Terry Silver of Marshfield, Vermont, to call us and leave a voicemail. She said my grandmother used to always say after someone sneezed, “sneezing to the truth.” Sneezing to the truth? Nope, never heard sneezing to the truth.
Well, I called her back to find out if she had any Yiddish in her heritage, and sure enough, she does. And this comes from a Yiddish expression that sounds something like gnosim tzum emis, which is sneeze into the truth or the sneeze confirmed the truth or sneezing on the truth. That is the belief that if I’m talking and you sneeze, that confirms that what I was saying was actually true.
Okay, nice. Isn’t that cool? Yeah, that’s very good. Yeah. Sneezing to the truth. Sneezing to the truth. Stern mutation to the truth. That’s right.
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Some Czechs also say Je to pravda (That is true) after sneezing.