Meaning of "slap the wrist"

[alvira]

hello everybody

in one of the movies i recently watched, a teacher is found involved in something wrong and asked to leave the job. while she is packing her things in the room her colleague enters. the teacher says to her,

five years ago they would have slapped my wrist. but now they really do not need me.

does ot mean they would have snatched the things she was packing from her hand and asked her to stay?

waiting for a helpful response

alvira

[Alan]

Hi ALVIRA,

Hope this is a helpful response - slap someone's wrist is an expression that means tell someone off/tell someone that they have done wrong and they they mustn't do it again. It's a sort of mild rebuke after which the person who receives the rebuke usually goes back to working normally.

Alan
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