"Sneeze smarter, not louder: The science of a quieter sneeze" (WaPo).
Maybe you enjoy the kind of freely expressive sneezing that's frowned on in Japan. You have to want to change, but if you do, the advice is: 1. Exhale in advance to lower the volume of air that will be in the sneeze, 2. Relax your vocal cords, 3. Close your mouth and use your tongue to channel the air up through your nose, and 4. Muffle the sound with your arm.
Anyway, loud sneezing is much more annoying to anyone who believes the sneezer is doing it on purpose... especially if they also feel hurt by sudden loud noises. They may be hurt by the noise per se and by knowing/believing it's done on purpose.
Here's a discussion from 6 years ago on the SubReddit "Change My View": "People who sneeze extremely loudly do it on purpose."
Even if you unwittingly developed loud sneezing and you used to tell people you can't help it, now that you know the 4 bits of advice, above, you can no longer claim innocence. Henceforward, you are doing it on purpose.
I'm not making a new tag for this, but if I were, it would be: Posts you're sorry you read.
Posts
43 comments:
What about loud farts?
Henceforward, you are doing it on purpose.
I knew they'd come for me eventually.
I'm usually mid-level volume. Not stifled, but not exaggerated.
Now I see that "not exaggerated" is not enough. This could be a pleasing development for my wife, a sneeze stifler who sometimes jumps at my sneeze.
To paraphrase Founding Father Ben Franklin:
"Sneeze for freedom, sneeze for liberty - and sneeze proudly."
Sneezing is probably politer in certain circles. Although a good fart is perhaps healthier for all concerned since it does not spread germs.
Sometimes sneezing causes a fart so it can be a twofer.
John Henry
Lewis Carroll used sneeze to mean fart. (Kenneth Burke)
Be careful with the "God bless yous" though.
https://youtu.be/xe7Vjjkbimo?si=nktrlWMGFYLtT-kB
..."Ever since childhood Evenwrite had been afflicted with a sneeze of such magnitude that it could have turned every head for blocks in his direction by virtue of volume alone, but more than that--above and beyond their acoustical power--his sneezes distinguished themselves by carrying a message as well, always the same message, forceful and invariable: as though he had stopped whatever he'd been doing and shouted--at the top of his lungs--haw . . . haw . . . hot SHIT! In the woods this resounding declaration had been a cause for kidding and fun, and even a bit of unconfessed pride. In the woods. But somehow it didn't go over as well in other areas. In church, or at a meeting, when he felt a sneeze coming on, he was always torn between letting it--hoping those present would either miss the message or excuse it--and bottling it back in his mouth. Each method had its drawbacks, to be sure. That was to be expected. But this time he suffered the drawbacks of both: while he managed to stifle the first half, the "hot" half, behind his bulging lips, the second half, the "SHIT" half, exploded forth clearly and resonantly in a cloud of saliva that settled like a mist over the whole table...."
Ken Kesey - Sometimes a Great Notion
I just got a dental implant. For 6 weeks after the sinus lift I was forbidden not only to go on an airplane but also to blow my nose. My husband declared that if I did so, my teeth would come flying out of my ears
I've had uncontrollable loud sneezes related to something in the air: Pollen, pollutants, whatever. i dont have time to go through the six step program for silent sneezing.
If you sneeze, fart, and burp at the same time, you die.
The purpose of sneezing is to expel irritants from your nasal passages. People who stifle sneezes end up sneezing over and over because they never accomplish this purpose. If other people are around, then the polite thing to do (other than facing away from them and using your elbow) is to give them warning just before sneezing - either verbally if possible, or by audibly drawing in air so that they realize that you are about to sneeze, and are not frightened by a sudden, unexpected loud noise.
In public it is polite to stifle your sneezes. In private a full blown sneeze is far more satisfying.
Not sneezing can be weird too.
GMTA, Aggie.
I thought about Floyd Evenwrite when I read this post. Considered posting the bit you did but too lazy to look it iup.
One of my favorite books. Probably read it 25 times.
Movie with Paul Newman & Henry Fonda is excellent too. Joe Maross as Floyd.
John Henry
"Exhale in advance to lower the volume of air that will be in the sneeze."
Physiologically improbable, at best.
Like in that movie where Sessue Hayakawa was always beating Alec Guiness and the other prisoners because they were sneezing too loudly?
My wife has a theatrically loud sneeze, but it seems to be involuntary.
Whiskeybum is correct, sneeze loud and proud, expel those irritants as quickly as possible. If done correctly it's like a nasal orgasm.
The Chinese had a pre-Westernization habit of picking their nose in public that embarrassed their leaders in transnational meetings.
Darkisland said...
Be careful with the "God bless yous" though.
Sometimes, they just fit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopyU7HthvM
My problem with sneezes is when I'm driving, because I know my eyes will close for the duration of the sneeze. So I'm very careful to scan the road ahead, wait for a straight stretch, and then let it rip, having imagined where I'd be when my eyes open again.
I like the rush of a sneeze. There is another thing my body does sometimes that I don't know the name for it. I can only describe it as what it might feel to generate a jolt of electricity. It might be like my body needs to degauss, like an old television/computer monitor. It also doesn't have the rush of a sneeze.
Noel Paul Stookey shares an experience with Japanese sneezing: Rashowa.
I sneeze silently. I have done it since childhood when my mom yelled at me every time I sneezed. When people see me do it, they warn me that I will burst a blood vessel in my brain doing that, but it is honestly reflexive. I have trouble sneezing out loud.
Cover your nose with your arm. Loud or silent, control your snot vapor.
When I was working slinging code we had some German consultants on board. They thought it was hilarious if someone said Gesundheit after a sneeze. They explained that it was how we would react if someone said something archaic like Forsooth or Odsbodkins.
Yoko Ono, ever the dissident, deviant, disruptor:
COUGH PIECE
Keep coughing a year.
— 1961 Winter
No wonder she had to leave Japan.
Amelican sneeze too roud and size does not matter." - some Japanese guy who lives here now.
rhhardin said...
Lewis Carroll used sneeze to mean fart. (Kenneth Burke)
3/25/25, 10:08 AM
"Speak harshly to your little boy, and beat him when he sneezes, for he can thoroughly enjoy the pepper when he pleases. Wow! Wow! Wow!" (From memory, so may not be exact.)
My wife's sneeze is so loud it scares children and sends small animals scurrying. Her sneeze can be heard from the other end and different floor of our comically, unnecessarily large house.
My kids call any loud sneeze a "Dad sneeze". Mine are very sudden, involuntary, and thunderously loud indeed.
I've heard the male orgasm compared to a particularly pleasurable and prolonged sneeze, and the female version compared to the sensation of weightlessness when going over the humps of a roller-coaster.
Like words and other sounds that come from the human mouth, a sound can be *voiced* or *unvoiced*. Good manners say, don't voice a sneeze, sneezes should be unvoiced.
Sneezing loud and proud
Expelling what needs expelled
Happy it's over.
silent farts madden
teh stench will make you clench but
there is no there there
lem is a bad boy
teh first one is always free
jonesin’ for teh sneeze
You don't have to sneeze. There's a trick to prevent an impending sneeze from actually occurring, that I just discovered. And it absolutely works.
I think all this public sneeze prevention idea is rubbish. If you need to sneeze - freakin' sneeze. But on the rare occasion when I don't feel like sneezing...like, I don't know...if there's a Jap around - I employ it. Do this:
When you feel the sneeze coming, immediately press firmly with the tip pad of your index finger on that spot on your upper lip 1/3 of the way down from your nasal septum to the upper edge of your lip. Remember, firmly, and do it quickly. Sneeze gone. (Has to do with interfering with the sensory signal from your nose via the trigeminal nerve, if you're interested.)
I always sneeze in threes.
Our old dackel has always had some respiratory issues, but lately they are worse (like allergies) and include sudden loud sneezes that cause him to blonk his little head on the floor.
3. Close your mouth and use your tongue to channel the air up through your nose
That technique is guaranteed to produce snot rockets that will splat hard against the opposite wall.
- Krumhorn
"Ice Nine said...
You don't have to sneeze. There's a trick to prevent an impending sneeze from actually occurring, that I just discovered. And it absolutely works."
Yep, works, but if you have a cold, snot flies
My mom, a 5’O” 110 lb Norwegian had the loudest sneezes I ever heard. I’d hear when I was outside and just to mess with her I’d come in just to say “bless you.” She was so embarrassed and trust me she had no control over it.
'It’s frowned upon to create such a loud noise [in Japan], to bother the public' Takashima said...
Good thing I'm not in Japan.
When you feel the sneeze coming, immediately press firmly with the tip pad of your index finger on that spot on your upper lip 1/3 of the way down from your nasal septum to the upper edge of your lip.
I do this if I feel a sneeze coming on while I'm driving. Otherwise, I just let it happen.
My very proper Eastern European grandmother was not amplifying her sneezes when she shouted "Hot sh!t."
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