` * Your point is US-specific. In the UK, a spade is not necessarily pointed, the most common have a square bottom: ``garden spades``. The difference in the UK is that a shovel has a head angled to the shaft to enable a scooping action to collect material to be picked up (e.g. coal, soil) and folded sides to increase the volume that can be picked up. A spade has a head in line with the shaft to allow the direct transference of energy from pushing down on the shaft, including stepping on the sides of the head (sometimes folded) to increase pressure on the blade end of the head.   `