Spanking

[monster]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Smacking sounds worse over here, than spanking.

Smacking implies an angry hit, where spanking implies a couple of beats to the bottom, to get their attention.

Beyond that it's called beating, with a couple of smacks to help it along.

That's my take on the word meaning difference, anyway.

it's generally the other way around in the UK, as dana mentioned. A bit like "crap" and "shit" -shit is ruder here, crap is ruder there.