Slap
The slap , even outdated slap and slap , regional and clamp called, is a guided from the side blow with the flat hand in the face (or on the cheek ) a person. The word slap comes from Middle High German and was first mentioned in the 13th or 16th century (cf. Dutch oorveeg , zu veeg = blow, prank). The word component -fige or -feige is derived either from sweeping or from the fruit fig in the figurative sense (swelling).
The slap as a means of education
Up until the 20th century, the slap was regarded as an effective educational tool alongside other forms of corporal punishment . In Germany , corporal punishment against children and young people has been forbidden and punishable since the law to ban violence in upbringing was passed in 2000. There is a widespread view that a slap in the face, however “lightly” it may be, is harmful to the person concerned. Slaps in the face can lead to permanent physical and mental damage, especially in children and adolescents, and can result in psychological trauma .
Risks
Slapping in the face does not always hit the target, which involves some risks. In extreme cases, slaps in the face of children and adolescents can lead to a significant traumatic rotational movement of the head with resulting intracranial hemorrhage in the sense of a traumatic brain injury and consequently permanent brain damage with disabilities or even death . If an ear is hit, the action of the flat hand can lead to excess pressure in the external auditory canal . As a result, the air is pressed against the eardrum from outside , which leads to its injury. This often results in a tear in the two lower quadrants of the eardrum. Destruction of the ossicular chain or inner ear damage are not observed in this type of injury.
In the autobiographical bestseller The Man with the Bassoon , the Austrian singer Udo Jürgens describes how, as a Hitler Youth , he was brutally slapped by a Rottenführer and consequently lost his hearing on this page .
The slap in the face as an insult
Although a slap in the face - in comparison z. B. to a fist in the face - is commonly associated with a rather low risk of injury and less pain, but this is considered particularly defamatory among adults . This is also evident in expressions such as the verbal slap . Without actually using violence, the slap told his “victim”: “Feel slapped!” This sentence used to have the same meaning as the actual action. After the actual act or the pronunciation of the sentence, the person who was slapped was considered to have been restricted in his honor and had the moral, albeit unlawful, duty to call on the person slapped to retaliate. Nowadays this idiom is rarely used.
The slap in the face in criminal law
In the event of a criminal complaint by the person concerned, the slap in the face can lead to criminal proceedings for bodily harm in the offense with a physical offense (a "light" slap in the face, which only insignificantly affects the "physical integrity", does not constitute bodily harm, usually realized but the offense of assault). The slap in the face that the then German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger received from Beate Klarsfeld on November 7, 1968 has become famous .
In Switzerland, even light slaps in the face are punishable as assault regardless of the offensive character (Art. 126 StGB).
The ritual slap
Face Slapping as a defense against evil
In tradition, blows were often assigned a power to ward off evil, which is why, for example, hanged people who were thought to live on as ghosts were slapped on the ears.
Slaps in the face to "strengthen your memory"
Slaps in the face have often been used in history as a means of "strengthening my memory ??", on the assumption that the pain experienced in the process keeps the memory of a memorable event alive. In the late Middle Ages, boys who were brought along as witnesses (often the children of the owners, i.e. the future heirs) were slapped at certain points in the territory ( boundary stones ) so that they could remember the situation when property was handed over and border patrols. Today this tradition only lives on in customs, e.g. B. Schnadegang (also Schnatgang, Schnatzug, Grenzegang, etc.). From the Middle Ages, the slap in the face as "memory strengthening" is also handed down when joining a craftsman's guild.
A similar custom persisted in some European regions (e.g. Poland, Lower Silesia, Hesse, Saxony, Carinthia) until the 20th century when the first spring dishes were cooked after winter or when someone was cooking a dish for the first time tasted: The neighbors give each other a light slap or pluck each other's ears, probably to be able to remember the special occasion later.
Face slaps as a symbolic strengthening of what has been beaten
In the Catholic liturgy of Confirmation an indicated slap (was lat. Alapa ) since the 13th century until the reform of Confirmation in 1973 as a symbol of strengthening (see. Accolade provided). A less well-known custom during the confirmation ceremony was a kick by the godfather, which can probably be interpreted as a means of “strengthening memory”.
Face Slapping as a sign of the establishment of a relationship of domination
Since the slapped person subordinates himself to the person slapping the face if he does not return the blow, the first slap signifies acceptance of this subordination, while the last slap in a relationship of power equals release from it. The first meaning becomes clear in various ceremonies: the historian Abbot Johann von Viktring reports that the candidate received a symbolic blow from the duke's peasant when he was appointed duke in Carinthia , which in the context of the ceremony is to be understood as a peasant democratic ritual.
The slap in the face with Wilhelm Busch
Wilhelm Busch described the slap in the face in his picture story Balduin Bählamm :
Here the cheek is full of juice;
The hand hangs there, filled with strength.
The force, as a result of the excitement, is
transformed into swing motion.
Movement that
rushes to the cheek in quick lightning turns into heat here.
The heat, however, through the inflammation of
the nerves, burns as a pain sensation down
to the deepest soul core,
and nobody likes this feeling.
This action is called slap,
the researcher calls it power transformation.
Synonyms, idioms, colloquial language
- Synonyms: commonly used and nationally known are Backenstreich , Backpfeife , Ohrschelle , Watsche . Dialectal: Watschn (Austria / Bavaria); Fotzn (Bavaria / Austria), Detschn, Tachtel (Austria); Schelln (Bavaria / Franconia); Location (East Frisia); Backfotzn, Oahrklatsch (Mölmsch Platt); Maulschelle, Schelle, Tåsche (Tyrol); Faunz (Erzgebirge), Fauze (parts of Saxony, largely out of date); Chlapf, Tatsch (Switzerland)
- The dialectal expression Detschn or Tachtel is often used in Austria for a grazing blow in the area of the head hair, which in the strict sense is not a slap in the face.
- The slap face is an "unsympathetic, stupidly provocative grimace", which, following the phrase, invites you to slap you.
- The phrase of the slap in the face means a counter-clockwise sequence for groups of people in a row (assuming the slap as a blow from the right).
- The phrase to write something behind the ears is commonly explained by saying that a slap in the face that will be remembered could serve as a “memory aid”.
- The Bible mentions the blow on the cheek in the Sermon on the Mount : "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, then hold the other out to him too!" ( Matthew 5,39b EU )
literature
- Georg Franck von Franckenau , Georg Wicken: [Disputatio medica] De alapis sive colaphis. Johann Christian Walter, Heidelberg 1674 ( digitized version ); New edition under the title: De alapis sive colaphis, of mouth bells and slaps. Hendel, Hall 1743 ( digitized version ).
- Henner Reitmeier: Slaps and Velvet Gloves , in: Die Brücke , No. 162 (January – April 2013), pp. 98–99
- Winfried Speitkamp: Slap in the face, duel and honor killing. Eine Geschichte der Ehre , Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-010780-5 (especially body and honor. A brief history of the slap in the face, pp. 25–67)
- Christos Tsiolkas: The Slap , Allen & Unwin, Sydney 2008, ISBN 1741753597 , winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009 (novel about the consequences of a slap that a man gives a strange child; the story is told by eight people who at the moment were present.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Friedrich Kluge, Elmar Seebold: Etymological Dictionary of the German Language / Kluge, 24th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 2002
- ↑ “Slaps in the face must become taboo” , interview with Manfred Karremann in Stern, March 11, 2008
- ↑ sergioalbanese
- ↑ H. Feldmann, T. Brusis: Certificate of the ear, nose and throat doctor . S. 188, 2012, Thieme
- ↑ Encyclopaedia of German superstition : Wall to plow bread , entry slap , columns 1217-1218, limited preview in Google Book Search
- ↑ Thanks to the pain comes the memory . Der Standard, Jan. 22, 2015
- ↑ Concise dictionary of German superstition: Freen bis Hexenschuss , entry craftsmen , columns 1429-1430, limited preview in the Google book search
- ↑ Concise dictionary of German superstition: silver to volcano , entry food , columns 229–230, limited preview in the Google book search
- ↑ http://www.st-georg-bad-fredeburg.de/aktuelles/firmung/firmung.htm
- ↑ Austria-Forum , entry Herzogbauer : http://austria-lexikon.at/af/AEIOU/Herzogbauer
- ↑ Landesmuseum Kärnten: the prince stone in the coat of arms hall, - ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Information on the Fürstenstein, http://www.fuerstenstein.at/geschichte/C10/P1
- ↑ This view can also be read online , accessed on January 27, 2013
