“What's that?” said Ron, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak-and-kidney pudding.
“Bouillabaisse,” said Hermione.
“Bless you,” said Ron.
“It's French,” said Hermione, “I had it on holiday summer before last.
It's very nice.”
One of the dictionaries I've consulted says "Bless you" can be used to express "thanks", which I think it could be the author intended to mean for this context. But I don't have confidence. What does it truly mean?
Best Answer
Sydney's answer is right in that "bless you" is what you say in English after someone sneezes, but I don't think it addresses why it was said in this context.
In American English at least, it's a pretty common joke to say "bless you" after someone says a weird word, like
bouillabaisse. The word doesn't have to sound anything like a sneeze, it just needs to be uncommon or have a weird pronunciation.Think of the motivation for it like, "What you just said sounds like gibberish," as if the person sneezed.
I personally haven't heard it used too much outside of books and film and other media, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in conversation.