Coughing
 

What do you do when you cough?

- Some people cover their mouth with their hand and effectively seal away the germs, while forgetting that they coughed on their hand prior to shaking a person's hand and unwittingly spread their germs.
- Other people cough on a closed fist which actually spreads the germs over a wide radius, making holding your fist up to "cover" your cough actually pointless.
- Another alternative is to cough into the pit of your elbow where not many people would bother to touch you or come into contact with. The most sanitary way although a bit unorthodox. Me and one other person are the only ones I've ever known to do this, me having picked it up only recently.
- Some people don't cover their mouth at all. This is gross. I don't like when one friend doesn't even bother to cover his mouth and coughs freely into the air and into other people's faces. I can understand not covering one's mouth when no one it around or people are far away though.

What do you think of other people who cough a certain way?
Of course the above points apply as well.

Do you even think that one has to cover all his or her coughs? Sick coughs? Coughs from swallowing at the wrong time? Coughs for tickles in your throat when you're not sick?

Coughing is the bane of my existence. Every single sermon I have ever recorded has had extreme amounts of coughing in it. Even during the summer! Even the priest! I know that they don't cough this much during their daily lives, so there must be something about sitting still and listening that compels them to cough, over and over.

God, I can't wait until the cardioid mic comes in.

Inside of my elbow. No joke.

Either I cover my mouth with the palm of my hand or cough into my arm. Depends on my situation. If it's really bad, then I cough into the inside of my shirt.

(It is NOT easy typing with a Wii-mote...)

I try to cover my mouth when I can. Usually my illness related coughs are the result of a nagging tickle (either caused by mucus or it being dry). Sometimes, my cough just builds upon itself til I sound like I'm going to hack up my lungs. :o_O: (I hate those coughs the most)

I use my fist. And I'm sure to clench fairly tightly so that nothing gets inside the fist i.e. on my hand. I don't want to get sick or get others sick due to such a trivial faux pas on my account.

I cough downwards. (or sometimes on my arm) :3:

Just a habit I guess.

Into my elbow. Used to do it into my hand, but then I realised that by shaking people's hands afterwards I was being an unhygenic troll.

I don't cough a lot, but when I do, I cover my mouth with the back of my hand. I also try to cough away from people. Sometimes when I'm sitting in a bus, a person behind me starts coughing one of those wheezing coughs and they don't cover up. It's annoying.

If I have to, I just use my lower part of my shoulder.

I cough into my hand most of the time. I don't cough as much as a smoker should, probably.

When I am around others, though - I instinctively cover my mouth. If I am alone somewhere, I just cough into the wide open. I don't think my cat minds too much. ^_^

I cough into my hands as a force of habit but I've started carrying around a handkerchief just in case. I figure that it's better than to couch directly into my hands when I may need to use them for something else like shake someone's hand. Nobody wants lung phlegms passed on to them.

I use to cough into my left fist ('cause I'd shake hands with my right hand), but I started to cough into my arm - near the elbow like some of the people above have said.

My quick-reflex is to cough into my hand, but if I know a cough is coming, I'll usually cough into my elbow or shoulder.

I cough onto the back of my left fist, I don't want people to think that I'm intentionally spreading germs if I cough onto my right hand and then shake hands with them.

You just taught me my new thing of the day with that elbow trick. I used to just cough into my palm and then think nothing further of it. People are too obsessive about germs in general; shaking hands isn't the same as swimming in blood. Just wash your hands a few times a day and don't touch your face if you can help it. This should prevent most cootie-related deaths.

By force of habit, I cough into my fist. But if I cannot, I tend to use my elbow or shoulder.

Inside of my elbow. I picked it up working in retail. Didn't want to cough into my hand and then have to be touching merchandise, computer keyboards, etc.

I cough into my fist, and I'm not sure I see anything wrong with that. Sometimes into my elbow though.

I cough into my elbow. I started doing it sometime in middle school, I think.

I definitely cough into my elbow, or, as odd as it sounds, into my shoulder. I work in a busy restaurant, so I need to cough or sneeze in one of those, just in case I don't have time to wash my hands before ringing someone out. I'm told that the elbow thing is most sanitary, and that's how nurses and such do it.

I'm one of those arm guys. That's what they ask us to do at work we have to cough. Seeing as how we handle food and all that, coughing into the elbow is probably the best sense.

Up to the sky, down to the ground or away from someone through the side. Using my hand to cover it up though is not common for me, but I tend to do so in other formal occasions.

I usually cough into my fist out of pure habit. It's pointless and I realize that, but at least it looks better than doing nothing. The one thing I always do is to quickly turn my head away from any people or computers, because flecks of spittle on monitors/keyboards at public computers are incredibly disgusting.