Mattock
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A mattock (Template:IPAc-en) is a hand tool used for digging, prying, and chopping. Similar to the pickaxe, it has a long handle and a stout head which combines either a vertical axe blade with a horizontal adze (cutter mattock), or a pick and an adze (pick mattock). A cutter mattock is similar to a Pulaski used in fighting fires. It is also commonly known in North America as a "grub axe".
DescriptionEdit
A mattock has a shaft, typically made of wood, which is Template:Convert long.<ref name="Cromell">Template:Cite book</ref> The head consists of two ends, opposite each other and separated by a central eye. A mattock head typically weighs Template:Convert.<ref name="Cromell"/> The form of the head determines the kind and uses of the mattock:<ref name="Birkby"/>
- A cutter mattock combines the functions of an axe and adze, with its axe blade oriented vertically and longer adze horizontally.
- A pick mattock combines the function of a pick and adze, with a pointed end opposite an adze blade.
Both are used for grubbing in hard soils and rocky terrain,<ref name="Birkby">Template:Cite book</ref> with the pick mattock having the advantage of a superior penetrating tool over the cutter mattock, which excels at cutting roots.
UsesEdit
Mattocks are "the most versatile of hand-planting tools".<ref name="Wray"/> They can be used to chop into the ground with the adze and pull the soil towards the user, opening a slit to plant into.<ref name="Wray">Template:Cite book</ref> They can also be used to dig holes for planting into, and are particularly useful where there is a thick layer of matted sod.<ref name="Wray"/> The use of a mattock can be tiring because of the effort needed to drive the blade into the ground, and the amount of bending and stooping involved.<ref name="Wray"/>
The adze of a mattock is useful for digging or hoeing, especially in hard soil.<ref name="Cromell"/>
Cutter mattocks (Template:Langx) are used in rural Africa for removing stumps from fields, including unwanted banana suckers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
HistoryEdit
As a simple but effective tool, mattocks have a long history. Their shape was already established by the Bronze Age in Asia Minor and ancient Greece.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Sumerian mythology, the mattock was invented by the god Enlil.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Mattocks (Template:Langx) are the most commonly depicted tool in Byzantine manuscripts of Hesiod's Works and Days.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Mattocks made from antlers first appear in the British Isles in the Late Mesolithic. They were probably used chiefly for digging, and may have been related to the rise of agriculture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Mattocks made of whalebone were used for tasks including flensing – stripping blubber from the carcass of a whale – by the broch people of Scotland and by the Inuit.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
EtymologyEdit
Template:Sister project The word mattock is of unclear origin; one theory traces it from Proto-Germanic, from Proto-Indo-European. There are no clear cognates in other Germanic languages, and similar words in various Celtic languages are borrowings from the English (e.g. Template:Langx, Template:Langx, Template:Langx).<ref name="OED">Template:OED</ref> However, there are proposed cognates in Old High German and Middle High German, and more speculatively with words in Balto-Slavic languages, including Old Church Slavonic {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and Lithuanian {{#invoke:Lang|lang}},<ref name="OED"/> and even Sanskrit. It may be cognate to or derived from the unattested Vulgar Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, meaning club or cudgel. The New English Dictionary of 1906 interpreted mattock as a diminutive, but there is no root to derive it from, and no semantic reason for the diminutive formation.<ref name="OED"/> Forms such as mathooke, motthook and mathook were produced by folk etymology. Although used to prepare whale blubber, which the Inuit call "mattaq", no such connection is known.
While the noun mattock is attested from Old English onwards, the transitive verb "to mattock" or "to mattock up" first appeared in the mid-17th century.<ref name="OED"/>