or a good situation to continue, e.g. ("It's been good all week and, touching wood, the weekend will stay good"). In Sweden, a common expression is "pepper, pepper, touch wood" (), referring to throwing pepper over one's shoulder and touching a wooden object. In Turkey, when someone hears about a bad experience someone else had, he/she may gently pull one earlobe, and knock on a wood twice, which means "God save me from that thing". In the United States in the eighteenth century, men used to knock on the wood stock of their muzzle-loading rifles to settle the black powder charge, ensuring the weapon would fire cleanly. In Vietnam a common expression is "trộm vía". It is said when a speaker wants the good/positive aforementioned thing will continue, especially when saying some good things about a newborn because they believe if they did not say the words, negative things would happen later. In Assam in Northeast India as well as in Russia, the expression "thu thu thu" -- the onomatopoeic phrase to represent the sound of spitting -- is used after making a favourable prediction or commenting on an ongoing favourable occurrence in order to deter misfortune befalling these favourable circumstances. Its use is similar to the use of the phrase "touchwood" in Western traditions. In Russia and Ukraine, "" ("To knock on wood") has the same meaning. There is also an expression "" ("Tfu Tfu Tfu") phrase to represent the sound of spitting similar with Assam in Northeast India. The difference, however, is that the person would have to "spit" with his head turned to the left shoulder which represents "spitting away" bad fortune because it is situated on the left (unstable) side of life" In South Korea, when you take back what you said, you say, "Grab the wood and do 'tweetweetwee-The sound of spitting-'". This means that in connection with the saying, "Be careful with your words" if you don't want anything bad to happen. References See also Alomancy, related to throwing salt over the left shoulder Crossed fingers Evil eye Jinx Superstitions Trees in culture