You're angry.
You're hurt.
You're frustrated.
You're barely holding on to rationality.
And someone says to you two words: "Calm down."
You're completely rational.
You're centered.
You're relaxed.
You have an issue to discuss with someone.
And as you begin to state your case, he says to you two words: "Calm down."
Never in all the history of any and all languages - spoken, written, signed, or otherwise communicated, human or otherwise - have those two words had any sort of positive effect on a person who is at any point on the spectrum between "so calm he might be near-comatose" to "he is enraged beyond all human comprehension".
I am constantly at a loss as to why people, in an almost universal consensus, have decided that it is acceptable on any level to tell someone to calm down. It amps up those who are already calm, and it is an outpouring of rocket fuel on the enraged and infuriated. These are the very same people, who, should they be told to "calm down," would LOSE THEIR GORRAM MINDS about being told to "calm down."
There are any number of two-word phrases that I know would set people off within a particular context:
- "No way." - A husband refusing to change his child's diaper.
- "As if." - A 1990's valley girl rejecting anything.
- "Bite me." - Another 1990's blow-off.
- "Suck it." - Also from the 1990's, De-Generation X. There's a gesture that accompanies it.
- "Piss off." - A British dismissal.
- "Go away." - A phrase often heard said by women to my drinking buddies in college when out at the bar.
But I can guaran-freakin'-tee that those phrases in those context will pale in comparison to replacing them with "calm down" in the same situations. The wife and mother will be a widow and her child fatherless. That valley girl might have to break a sweat while running away. The '90's would have been a more violent (although admittedly less vulgar) time. The Brits would not only have lost the Colonies, but England would have become the 14th State in 1776. And my drinking buddies would not be my friends, as I would have to clock them to keep them from doing something rather ungentlemanly.
tl;dr - The phrase "Calm down" is inflammatory, insulting, and should never, ever, EVER be used in 99.9997% of circumstances.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.