Catchy Phrase Has Deep Roots for Stuttering Community
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Keep Calm and Carry On. We’re sure you’ve seen it on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or even Instagram. Your children certainly have! And someone with it on a t-shirt has probably passed you while walking down the street. It’s a catchy meme (i.e., an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture), and it seems to be a phrase to which many persons who stutter can relate. Its first appearance wasn’t on a Droid RAZR or a Macbook Pro but in London during a time of great panic and uncertainty. And it has deep roots in the stuttering community.
Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, several months before the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. It had only limited distribution with no public display, and thus was little known. It was rediscovered in 2000, has been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products.
The poster was initially produced by the British Ministry of Information, at the beginning of the Second World War. It was intended to be distributed in order to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster, such as mass bombings of major cities using high explosives and poison gas, which was widely expected within hours of an outbreak of war. Over 2,500,000 copies were printed, although the poster was distributed only in limited numbers.
The poster was third in a series of three. The previous two posters from the series, “Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might” and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” were issued and used across Britain for motivational purposes, as the Ministry of Information assumed that the events of the first weeks of the war would demoralize the population.
Planning for the posters started in April 1939 under the direction of King George VI, who we all remember from the epic movie The King’s Speech [1].
By June designs were prepared, and by August 1939, production had begun, and the posters were ready to be placed within 24 hours of the outbreak of war. The posters were intended to be associated with the Ministry of Information, and to incorporate a unique and recognizable lettering and design, with a message from the King to his people.
An icon of a “Tudor” crown (a widely used symbol of government) was chosen to head the poster, rather than a photograph. These particular posters were designed as “a statement of the duty of the individual citizen,” un-pictorial, to be accompanied by more colloquial designs.
So Keep Calm and Carry On was a wartime slogan developed by a King, who was a person who stuttered, to build morale and to lead his country through troubled times. We certainly understand why the stuttering community would gravitate toward such a positive message from an understanding King.
From the Summer 2014 Newsletter