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I was referring to the child being taught to "use their words" as opposed to, say, throwing a tantrum.
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I think in my house it would be hard to use our words since we were taught that whatever dad said was law and there was no negotiation. I do see several mistakes that were made during my upbringing by my parents and I'd like to think I learned from those so I won't repeat them with my own kids, if I decide to have them.
My father stopped using the belt when I was also around 7 or 8 but my biggest problems with his way of scolding started for simmilar reasons than you mention here related to spanking but that for me were present in the verbal scolding I received as an older kid and in my teenage years.
There were strict rules for the belt: tantrums, not eating what mom made, not keeping our rooms clean and not keeping up with school. He never hitted us hard, just enough to leave a slight sting that stopped just a moment later. There was never a lack of consitency or logic then because he was very aware that something like that would be called abuse.
Meanwhile, the verbal scolding always varied depending on how irritated/tired/angry he was, so there was no way to know how bad we would have it. There were all types of reasons for the scolding, from making a noise he didn't like to washing my sneakers with my old toothbrush. In fact, one of my biggest gripes with my father was that whenever he had a bad day at work he would always come home looking for a reason to scold us so that he could yell at someone and there were times when he just remembered something we had done in the past so he would scold us AGAIN. We, figuratively speaking, had to walk in our tiptoes around him.