Short answer: sneezing is intense and singular, coughing in most cases not.

I always get a whole bunch of blessing in class

What I heard when I was younger is that when you sneezed, that means a part of the devil has just entered you and that people say bless you to push the devil out of you body. I also heard that coughing usually means someone is choking or was a smoker and they sinned so god is ready to take them from this world. (my pastor told me the stories)

Proper answer:

In various pagan cultures, it was believed that when you sneezed, you exposed a bit of your soul. People would say "bless you" to keep evil spirits from attacking you.

As you might know, the German equivalent of "bless you" is "Gesundheit!" (German for "health"). I was told that it originates from the times of plague, when the doctors used to knock on doors to find out if there was anyone still alive inside. It was a German teacher who told me this, but to be quite frank it could be a common misconception or just bullshit.

...interesting answers. thanks guys! :)

@Gargron

In Spanish, it is much the same. "Salud", meaning "health", is said when another sneezed.

Wow. "Prosit" is what we say in Sweden and I don't even know what it means.

Edit: It's Latin, as I suspected. It literally means "benefit" which is lame.

In Croatia we say "nazdravlje" and it's something like "(hope you)get better".

I really learned a lot of things from those answers. Looks like I have new words to use other than bless you from now on.

yeah. im sure ill get some stares when someone sneezes and i say nazdravlje :P

@kuraihikari: Good luck pronouncing it :D

Hmm... this is just what I think but, since every culture got their own response when a person sneezes, it could be that the practice goes all the way back.

I bet the origin goes like this:

Cavemen 1: Achoo! Cavemen 2: (shit his pants)

So, they invented a ritual to prevent soiled pants (or animal skins, or leaves, or the floor, etc.)

Okay, I made that up. But I was surprised that sneezing actually does have something to do with soiling your pants.

http://www.webmd.com/urinary-incontinence-oab/america-asks-11/stress

Urinary stress incontinence occurs when an activity, such as coughing or sneezing, causes a small amount of urine to leak from the urethra, which is the tube urine passes through. Stress incontinence is the most common type of incontinence suffered by women, especially older women. In addition, women who have given birth are more likely to have stress incontinence.

Perhaps the origin could be in order to prevent "accidents" when sneezing :)

it's "будь здоров" (bud' zdorov) or "будьте здоровы" (bud'te zdorovi) here, meaning "stay healthy" and implying "I wish you to be healthy". @TokoyamiSenshi reminds me of russian "на здоровье" (na zdorov'e), exept we use it as "you're welcome" :D

@Ecstasy: Yeah, we use it as cheers too. I understand tons of Russian words, and you'd probably understand as much Croatian, but meanings don't always match exactly.

In Hungary we say "Egészségedre!" which means something like "To your health!".

I learned that it was because of the plague. Sneezing was one of the symptoms and people would say "bless you" because you were going to die soon.

Chinese people.... I don't think we say any specific follow-ups to that. Well, the person who sneezed would say "不好意思" or something which just means "Pardon/Excuse me". But even if we do say something after another person sneezes, it's so rarely used that even my grandmother doesn't know it.

Then again, casually, we'd say something like “你病啦？” (Are you sick?) or “哎喲！” [exclamation kind of thing] or “你怎麼啦？” (What's wrong [Really meaning: "Are you sick?/Do you have a cold?"]). Yeah. And if you sneeze next to some old person you don't know or something, they would most likely say something like “離他遠點” (Don't get too close to him/her) and start ushering their friends and family members away. Though that's more from experience than anything else. :/

a long time ago people thought when someone sneezes they are pushing out bad spirits or demons. so they said " Bless you."