I've been reading the topics on this board for awhile, and I find them endlessly entertaining. I will add my own story of how complete silence worked for me.
Some Background,
I have been in a relationship for almost 10 years, and I am currently engaged to my guy. His older sister is... difficult. She and I cordial and friendly, but we are not close. This is mainly due to differences in personality, but she also frequently loses the filter between her brain and mouth, and has a temper. Super fun to be around, by the way.
End.
For awhile, think almost a year, she insisted on calling me a weird version of my name. My name is fairly common and easy to pronounce, there are not many people who would mix it up. About 4 years into my relationship with her brother, she decided to change my name to something she found hilarious, based off a pretty famous hockey player. Think Clareberle instead of Clareish. Not really funny, but she thought so. It bugged me, but I usually just laughed, because she can be a bully when she's looking for a reaction.
Then she called me this stupid name in front of the whole family. I stared at her for a moment, and then turned my head, all in complete silence. She was laughing away, AND NOBODY SAID A WORD! It was beautiful. The whole family stared at her in silence until she stopped laughing, looked around awkwardly, and then said something like "well, I guess that wasn't funny." Her own husband also stared at her in silence.
She has never called me it since.
