A snappy and inoffensive alternative for "calm your tits" [closed]

Question

I need a non-sexist, non-sexualized aternative instead of "Calm your tits."

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Clarification: The question comes from the parent of a pre-teen with Tourette Syndrome. The parent (me) needs some alternatives that will appeal to said pre-teen, but which will be less offensive to the parent, in the style of habit reversal.

The alternative should not be gender specific.

It needs to be something that a 12yo would find at least slightly funny.

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Update: "Don't get droopy, Snoopy," is working pretty well as a transition phrase.

Answer 1

I recommend trying something sing-songy and verging on nonsense, in hopes that the very doggerel aspect of it will have catchy appeal to a 12-year-old. For example:

Easy-peasy, don't be sleazy.

or

Keep cool and don't drool.

Both of these have, besides goofy rhymes, a vaguely suggestive component ("sleazy" and "drool") that seems indefinitely subversive without actually being particularly offensive. Unfortunately, my first suggestion might do better with an 8- to 10-year-old than with a 12-year-old, and the second one can easily mutate into "Keep a cool tool, fool," which uses tool in a sexually ambiguous way and in fact is part of a longer piece of junkyard rhyme that removes any ambiguity in that regard.

Another option might be

Don't lose your fuse.

which recommends (kind of) against metaphorically blowing up.

Not so very long ago, every 12-year-old under the spell of The Simpsons delighted in quoting Bart Simpson's catch-phrase "Don't have a cow, man!" on the least provocation. But fashion being what it is, you might have to subject your child to weekly marathons of early-season episodes of The Simpsons to get buy-in from him on that wording—and it still might not happen.

In any case, I wish you luck in your search for an inoffensive alternative to the catchphrase that you are currently struggling against.

Answer 2

If you wanted to be gender-sensitive, you could say to males, Calm your mits. or Calm your man-tits.

The alternative versions work:

1. Take a chill pill.
2. Calm down!
3. Woah, there.
4. Woah, Nelly! Naayyy! (like a horse)
5. Chill.

More alternatives can be found here.

Answer 3

Cool your jets. Simple, similar, safe.

Answer 4

The most genuinely annoying thing to be told - but highly amusing to everyone else - as you're blowing a gasket, by a young person is:

• Chillax, man!

This portmanteau of chill and relax is quite snappy and you'll also actually hear it around. This has no sexual connotation but is useful for the speaker because it makes them look cool and drives the person they're saying it to up the wall (or can make them, laugh if they're not genuinely losing it).

We tend to say Man in this way to everybody regardless of gender, so I doubt it would ever be considered gender specific in a derogatory way. However, you'd be able to lose the man, keep quite a close fit to the original, and have a rhyme if you you substitute in a random name for man:

• Chillax, Max!

Hopefully, the excruciatingly annoying Chillax and the rhyme, in combination with being able to call someone the wrong name while they're flying off the handle, will appeal.

Answer 5

Regarding your mention above that “Keep it droopy, Snoopy" would permit your son to make a (less offensive) connection between tits and drooping, with the hope that he'll be able to branch out from there, you could also consider, for a similar reason and with a similar hope, the following expression for “relax[ing] and stay[ing] cool”:

Hang loose, [Mother Goose]

(The Free Dictionary, with “Mother Goose” added);

or a variation thereof:

Keep it (‘em?) loose, Mother Goose.

Answer 6

Maybe it matches less the situation described, but I like very much a sentence: 'Hold your horses'

Answer 7

........ Slow your roll, turbo.

Answer 8

cool your boots

Edit to add Cool your boots, sunshine sunshine is often used somewhat ironically here, as they're often not being a ray of sunshine!

Very generic!

calm down petal

Has the same offensive feeling, especially when used against an alpha male type getting angry!

As per my comments, petal is comparing them to a delicate flower petal, so again used somewhat ironically as it's a great phrase to use when someone is boiling over in rage. By using an affectionate term for them, it suggests that you find their words like a cute mewing of a kitten ;-)

Answer 9

The question is a bit unclear, but I am assuming that the request is for the parent to have suggestions for better phrases for the teen to use? In that case, the dynamic of teen/parent interaction is key. If the kid is saying "calm your tits" and knows it bothers their parents, then that alone may be reason for them to keep using it! Had a similar situation with my teenager who went through a period of calling things he didn't like "gay". All appeals to reason did not work - at all. Frustrating the heck out of him by acting totally oblivious and responding with protracted sessions of questions wore him down.

Gay? It doesn't look happy? Does it make YOU happy? Oh? You mean homosexual? So you're saying its perfectly fine just different than you? Oh - you mean it's cool like my buddy Jeff who is DEFINITELY gay? Is it just gay? Or is it lesbian too? I mean, it's just not clear what you're trying to say...

He found another phrase all on his own.

Calm my tits? I've worked hard for these man-boobs and I have really excitable nipples. Is that a problem? Your mom actually likes that about my boobs. I'm real fond of hers too. Always have been...

Having a teens parents go on about how much they appreciate each other sexually aught to clear up that phrase in a BIG hurry!

Answer 10

Keep your shorts on or keep your hair on.

Going off your suggestion 'Keep your _____ (something) _____ on.'

Answer 11

I would suggest "give your chest a rest". It retains the idiom, takes away the offensive word and adds a humorous touch by way of the rhyme.

Answer 12

This suggestion is going to sound cheesy but I must say take it easy (Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary). It taken to mean please relax, as an imperative suggestion to remain calm depending on the context, making it easy to incorporate into the vocabulary. It is also nice because it is almost as short as the phrase it's replacing, "Calm your tits!" which is only one syllable shorter.

It also has special signification to the admirers of the japanese computer game series known as Touhou Project by Zun. Although the original games are fairly innocent, it should be forewarned that some of the admirers are immature, vulgar, derisive and talented people, who sometimes create obscene art. You would probably need to supervise his direct access to Touhou subject matter if he became interesting in it.

However, although sometimes loathers make it gruesome, this is generally one of the overall more innocent fads amongst enthusiasts:

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" The Yukkuri shiteitte ne!!! (ゆっくりしていってね！！！, often translated as "You should be taking it easy!!!" or "Take it easy") is a very common meme amongst the Touhou Project fandom, which involve giant, disfigured heads resembling those of Touhou characters, often referred to as "yukkuris". It originated on 2ch on October 13, 2007, when an anonymous user tried to replicate Shift JIS art of Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame, but failed horribly. However, another anonymous user thought the failed attempt was hilariously humorous and responded by drawing the infamous original picture. " [pics. omitted]

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"Text content of Touhou Wiki is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, a.k.a. CC-BY-SA 3.0. "

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Enthusiasts have much folklore regarding these amorphous heads and their legendarily irritating laziness. It has in ways superseded the popularity of their source materials

The relevance of this is that since this is related to a fad that's very popular amongst Japanese animation lovers, it should be relatively easy to get your son to pick up the phrase with amateur made "study materials" that might catch his interest. Well maybe, it's harder to find fully translated stuff. You'll want to download the pictures since some of the other pictures on Safebooru might be a inappropriate for a 12 year old. Limiting myself to pictures with the idiom of interest I can find:

• This Vocaloid music video, has lots of repetitions of the phrase "take it easy"
• Here's a cloyingly cute pic of a Yukkuri family drawn in a westernized style.
• These are bossy Yukkuris, who cant relax until you leave what is probably your own home.
• Slow down before...
• The fruit of a Yukkuri's loins, minus the loins
• Here is Another Yukkuri family.

Also this is probably not related to Yukkuris, except through coincidence but Hatsune Miku (Have you heard of her?) knows how to take it easy, although that is mostly in Japanese.

Answer 13

On 8/3 in the evening I ran the following past my son as proposals for him to use as a substitute phrase:

Take it easy, Cheesy

Don't lose your fuse

Cool your boots, dude

Keep it droopy, Snoopy

He rejected the first three, and corrected the last one. He feels it has to be

Don't get droopy, Snoopy

(I forgot to propose a couple of the good ones, e.g. Chillax, Max. I doubt he'll go for this, since there is a Max in our cast of characters.)

Back to don't get droopy. He is making a very clear connection to the original (tits) that I want to eliminate -- but now it's more subtle. I accepted this as a compromise.

With tourettic OCD, there's a strong need to repeat something, perform something (like putting a glass down on the table repeatedly), say something, until it feels right. So a substitute phrase won't work if it doesn't feel right to the individual.

On my part, I am trying to veto any phrase that gets my dander up. I can live with his droopy phrase because I know that when he's making fun of my droopy shape, he's doing it affectionately (we have a running family joke about this). Also note that I don't consider droopiness to be gender-specific -- maybe that's just me.

Since this is so subjective, I am going to award the bounty to the person(s) who helped me the most.

Answer 14

1."Cool your heels." or 2."Cool your beans." The first referring to holding onto something or idea so strongly that it drags one, causing friction on dug-in heels, and the second referring to a hot pot of gaseous legumes that need to be cooled before being consumed eventhough the gas is still an inevitable side effect.