What's in the Cards

[deckardcanine]

The symbol of clubs in a playing card deck
Doesn’t look like a club much to me.
A forumite said that it came from a myth,
But the sources I found disagree.

In French, it’s called tréfle, which translates to clover.
Historians therefore suspect
The English used Spanish suits first and continued
The name when they swapped out the deck.

That also explains why the symbol of spades
Hardly shows what a shovel looks like.
Its name’s from the Old Spanish word for a sword,
Which the French had replaced with a pike.

So why aren’t the hearts still called cups and the diamonds
Called coins as the Spaniards would do?
The symbols are easy to recognize; naming
Them wrong makes you sound like a fool.