Never assume that any electric wire, no matter what color it has, is safe to touch.
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First, you call a licensed electrician... The usual rule in the US at least is that black is the hot wire and white is the neutral wire. (If the wires are some color other than black and white, usually the darker wire is the hot wire.) However, you should never assume that whoever wired your house followed this rule; to be safe, you should always double check.
YES the white wire can shock. There are a few reasons why it might: 1) the white wire is actually connected to a switch. When the installer connects the white wire from the switch to the light, the National Electric Code requires the white wire to be "hot", and to be marked to indicate that it is hot. Sometimes this doesn't happen. The problem comes later when Joe homeowner replaces the light fixture. He sees the white wire with a black mark or maybe not, and connects the white wire to all of the other white wires. When the switch is turned on, the black wire that he placed on the other side of the switch connects to the white wire and trips the breaker. When Mr. Homeowner checks it out, touching the white wire gives him a shock. 2) The white wire returns the current to the source of the circuit. When the white wire is shared with two circuits, It returns the current from both circuits to the panel. When someone (even a professional) turns off only one of the circuit breakers to these circuits, the white wire still carries the current from the second LIVE circuit. If the person is replacing a receptacle withonly one of these circuit breakersoff, he or she could touch the white wire (called an open neutral) and get a shock from the returning current from the second circuit.
If you are referring to lamp cord type wire where both wires are brown then yes, connect the wire with the groves to the white neutral and the smooth wire to the black hot wire.
The neutral wire and power wire are never connected together.
In the US, if you only have a black wire (ungrounded or hot conductor) and a white wire (normally a grounded conductor or neutral) there is not a ground wire. Sometimes the white wire is used as a hot, so each wire would have to be identified. <<<< Electrical work should only be done by a qualified electrician.>>>>