10 Bizarre Origins Of Everyday Traditions That Will Blow Your Mind

4. Covering Your Mouth When You Yawn

The Tradition Today: Less tradition and more etiquette, the explanation behind this practice doesn€™t seem too hard to fathom: it€™s looked down upon in polite conversation to display your gaping maw in an action that universally translates to €œI€™m incredibly uninterested in what you€™re saying.€ Self-explanatory, right? Where It Came From: Wrong again, as it turns out. Open mouths have historically been correlated with transmissions of immaterial objects, and various cultures have associated yawning with both good things leaving and bad things entering the body. For example, early Islamic lore suggests that yawns allowed Satan to enter the body and distract the devout mind from its prayers, and to foil his master plan of evil, one would have to Satan-proof oneself by covering one€™s mouth. Some other cultures associate yawning with the soul leaving the body, such as in India, where the yawn can cause your soul to exit or evil spirits to enter the mouth. Again, hand-covering or, bizarrely, finger-snapping was the way to go here. Even in modern-day exorcisms, yawning can be considered a sign of the possessive spirit leaving the body. Across cultures, the consensus is the same: you have much more to lose than a possible friendship or a contempt of court penalty, so for the sake of your soul, cover that mouth.