Calm down, dear

David Cameron's jibe at Opposition front bencher Angela Eagle, telling her to 'Calm down, dear', has resulted in a lot of media comment and criticism. 'Calm down, dear', say critics, is a patronising statement, and presumably Cameron would not have said it to a male MP. You can see the clip from the Parliamentary session here; he says the phrase two or three times.

 

The phrase 'calm down' can in itself be construed as patronising, since it assumes that the person has lost their cool or is neurotic. Coupling it with the even more patronising 'dear' exacerbates the offence.

 

It is not so much words and phrases themselves that are patronising, but the context they are used in, the tone of voice of the person making the comment, and other factors. I am often addressed as 'dear' by shop assistants and the like, and that is fine; in those situations it can be considered friendly and down to earth.

 

David Cameron claimed to be merely repeating the popular catchphrase of Michael Winner, the film director and food critic. Certainly, the phrase is well known, since Winner says it in a television ad for insurance.

 

The phrase 'calm down' (without the 'dear') is also associated with Harry Enfield's stereotypical comedy characters, the Scousers (see this very short YouTube clip).

Comments

[Alan]

A similar, notorious case centering on racism and not sexism is the 'Water Buffalo Incident' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo_incident

Deborah Cameron in 'Verbal Hygiene' has a good piece on how you have to reconstruct the interpretive process in deciding whether offence can be construed.

[john]

Your "shop assistant" perspective reminds me of the differences in the US between the Northern urban cultures and the South.

The North is pretty much what one would expect; a very strict avoidance of sexist terms and phraseology.

The South tends to be far more informal and one finds plenty of "dears", "honeys" and the like from and to both men and women.

It becomes tough to manage sometimes in a business with Southern and Northern entities speaking to one another.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks to you both for your comments, and for the interesting link, Alan. Language certainly is a minefield!

[Social Media Management]

It is important to address people, to show our respect to them. But in some western countries addressing people name is not their attitude.