squash

[A.W. Tüting]

There's no question that (the plant) 'squash' was before (the tool) 
'spoon' (used as kind of cutlery).
After people 1) having gotten familiar with that plant and 2) at some 
time using it as a tool (i.e. 'spoon'), it is quite 'natural' (most 
likely) that they had named the tool after the plant.
IMVHO, it is very unlikely, though, that people not familiar with that 
plant but using spoon-like tools produced from other materials (say, 
bones, wood or what have you) will adopt a foreign word ('squash') for 
this tool after they had gotten familiar with that plant that had 
provided its name for it in another culture, or even - still not 
knowing the plant - just take the foreign word 'spoon' as a loan.
Alfred



Am 28.08.2006 um 23:42 schrieb David Costa:

> It's simplest to assume it meant 'spoon' in Proto-Algonquian and 
> simply kept
> that meaning everywhere except Miami, where it shifted to 'squash, 
> pumpkin'.
> I assume this is simply because in some places and at some times the 
> most
> common spoons were gourds. (Tho there's also evidence that the Miami 
> used to
> make spoons out of shells.) It's an easy semantic jump to make.