"SMACK" vs "BEAT"

Following on from my rants concerning the tetchy subject of "child beating" and the upcoming "to child beat or not to child beat" people's referendum, some people have taken issue at my use of the word "beat" in preference to the word "smack".

To assist in any debate that I may have innocently provoked, please allow me to clarify the basis of my semantic choice:
"smack" is an anglo saxon word derived from the German 'smakken' or 'schmacken' and means to strike with something flat - like an open hand, or a ping pong paddle for instance - or even a plank of wood, a flat metal bar - or perhaps a cricket bat (but not a softball bat as this is round) as the word smack also means: "to drive with a sharp resounding blow or stroke".

When the "anti smacking law" hand wringers talk about 'smacking', I am presuming that they do not mean "to drive with a sharp resounding blow or stroke" - but, then again, the evidence is that perhaps some of them do... Well, there's always and exception to any rule, but I digress.

Semantically the word "smack" does not accommodate the many methods employed by parents whose children have got the better of them, who have run out of ideas and who thereby feel the overwhelming need to resort to ' physical discipline' - or in other words: "Teaching their children conflict resolution by means of violence.

After 25yrs in child safety advocacy, it is my experience that this "physical discipline" regularly includes the employment of jug cords and other electrical appliance leads, riding crops, bamboo canes, fists, backhanders, various sticks, rods and other similar implements and so on and so forth, sometimes grabbed in a moment of passion and sometimes deliberately selected and then used to beat the child. None of this is semantically or even technically 'smacking'.

Hence the proponents of the furore over the "anti smacking law" are not only seeking to pervert public perception of the law (in reality the The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 ) by the stealth and deception of applying a false title, they are also trying to undermine the integrity of the language by perverting the meaning of the very words we use to communicate.

While, clearly, the word "smack" is routinely misapplied in terms of physical discipline, the word "beat" has a far wider range of meanings that would appear, prima facie, to more truthfully describe actual physical punishment of children as it exists out here in the real world.

For instance - "beat" means:
to strike violently or forcefully and repeatedly;
to break, forge, or make by blows;
to produce (an attitude, idea, habit, etc.) by repeated efforts: 'I'll beat some sense into him';
to strike (a person or animal) repeatedly;
to overcome in a contest; to defeat;
to be superior to;
to strike repeated blows; to pound;
a stroke or a blow;
the sound made by one or more such blows;
to achieve victory in a contest;
to escape or avoid (blame or punishment).

The final two are quite telling in the circumstances don't you think? Be all of this as it may, I don't think that any of these semantic distinctions really matter to a 3 or 4 - or 5 or 6 year old who is being flogged with a jug cord or a leather belt (and I use the word "flog" semantically, not emotively).

There is far too much being read into this situation by the people who perceive their parental rights to be evaporating. Contrary to the "anti smacking law' hand wringers, I suggest that the average parent has not been victimised by the above amendment to the Crimes Act and that the opposition to the law is being stirred up by fanatics who are cynically manipulating the argument to salve their own consciences or further their own perversions.

To their credit the police (and God knows the police don't need any more bad publicity) have not been arresting anyone under the auspices of this law except in cases of flagrant abuse! And where someone has fallen afoul of the law, in my opinion, should they be quietly slipped into the open population in Paremoremo where they can really learn the true meaning of "smack" in the vernacular rather than the pedantic, that would not be something that would keep me awake at night.

Let's stop playing with words and start caring for our children instead of for ourselves.