Before the pandemic, a handshake, a kiss on the cheek or a hug were commonplace around the world – practices that lasted for generations. Today? It’s a controversial move.
Click start to play today’s Spell It, where you can spot “salaam”, a common greeting in the Arab world.
Handshakes were especially popular in ancient times. One popular theory, according to History.com, is that the gesture was a way of conveying peaceful intentions. When strangers extended their empty right hands, they were able to assure the other party they were not holding weapons and did not have any malicious intentions. Even the up-and-down movement of the handshake had a purpose – it was supposedly a way to dislodge any hidden knives or daggers from a person’s sleeve.
In other circumstances, clasping hands was a way to seal an oath or promise. It showed people that their word was a sacred bond.
One of the earliest depictions of the handshake is from a relief, circa ninth century BC. It shows the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III sealing an alliance with a Babylonian ruler. The Greek epic poet Homer also described the practice in his Illiad and the Odyssey, and it was often associated with displaying trust.
It’s not just the handshake that’s part of customary greetings. A swift kiss on the cheek is known in France as “la bise”, and is a standard greeting in many parts around the world, including Latin America, the Subcontinent and the Philippines.
The cheek kiss is even more lethal when viewed with the lens of the pandemic – since it plants germs directly onto people’s faces. According to a report in the National Geographic, during the plague in the 14th century, it is thought that the practice was stopped, and only revived 400 years later, after the French revolution. In 2009, la bise was temporarily halted again as swine flu swept around the world. And at the end of February 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French Health Minister advised against it as cases were on the rise.
Perhaps the advice of a nurse, from a 1929 study published in the American Journal of Nursing, still holds true today. She warned that hands “are agents of bacterial transfer” and recommended that people adapt the Chinese custom at the time, of shaking their own hands together when greeting a friend.
Whether it’s an Indian namaste, or an Arab hand-over-heart gesture, the way we greet each other is changing as our world copes with new and highly contagious diseases.
Do you still shake hands with people you meet? Play today’s Spell It and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.
