Word of the Day - Tawse

I used the word tawse in the excerpt I posted on Tuesday. Not one you hear everyday, so Shelli suggested I use it as a Word of the Day. I'm taking her up on that. Before doing so, however, I feel like I should establish that I do not personally support Corporal punishment where children are concerned. It is a part of my character's back story and is significant in only that it pertains to some of the internal conflict he must face later in the story.

Now...

Tawse: "A leather strap slit into strips at the end and used especially for disciplining children."

Per Wikipedia: "A tawse (the plural of Scots taw, a thong of a whip) is an implement for physical punishment, called tawsing. It was used for educational and domestic dicipline, primariliy in Scotland. Scottish schools used the tawse to beat pupils on the palms. In the 1980s a European court judgment led to its use being banned in UK schools in 1998."

Ouch! Can you imagine?