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But what is a spade? From what I can tell from a little research I've done, this expression goes way back, and has various "ulterior" meanings beyond the common generic understanding that it means "frank talk." What I'd like to know is what Oscar Wilde meant by it in one of my favorite plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, which was written in 1895 London.
There is a scene in Earnest in which two upper class ladies are arguing:
Cecily: Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Also, it is entirely possible that Cecily meant it in one way, while Gwendolen meant it in another.
And the story goes on:â€
Cecily: Do you suggest Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Merriman: Shall I lay tea here as usual, Miss?
Cecily: Yes, as usual.
Gwendolen: Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss Cardew?
Cecily: Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties.
Gwendolen: Five counties! I don't think I should like that. I hate crowds.
Cecily: I suppose that is why you live in town?
Gwendolen: Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss Cardew.
Cecily: So glad you like it, Miss Fairfax.
Gwendolen: I had no idea there were any flowers in the country.
Cecily: Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London.
Gwendolen: Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist in the country, if anybody who is anybody does. The country always bores me to death.
Cecily: Ah! This is what the newspapers call agricultural depression, is it not? I believe the aristocracy are suffering very much from it just at the present. It is almost an epidemic amongst them, I have been told. May I offer you some tea, Miss Fairfax?â€
Cecily, who lives in country, used a phrase – to call a spade a spade meaning to call things by their real names (here means the entanglement of Gwendolen); And the spade in words retorted by Gwendolen, a noblewoman who lives in town (London) means by its literal meaning – a digging tool to ridicule Cecily as a provincial, a rustic, to whom unless entrapped into such a foolish promise, Earnest couldn't possibly propose, and it also echoes the fact that Gwendolen despises country people.
Thanks, Hanson. I had already used the same logic that you are using to guess that Gwendolen probably meant spade as a gardening implement. Yes, that would seem consistent with the story, characters, and Wilde's satirical, sarcastic style, if in fact the English were using spade as the word for a digging tool at that time. But that needs to be verified, and there is still the problem with Cecily.
No doubt Cecily meant to speak frankly, but what is a spade to her? I'd like to know what the common understanding(s) of what a spade was meant to be in that idiomatic phrase in England at that time.
I've learned from experience that the English don't always speak English! 
i was listening as you decided that the word "spade" was a no-no because of it's racist implication....i agree that it is, today, a racist word.... i was reminded of THE HUMAN STAIN BY philip roth which i don't believe you mentioned (but can't be sure): professor coleman silk (athena college) is in the 6th week of his lecture class, two students have missed all the previous lectures, so he asks (b/c it's a small class) "Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spookes?"... the dean of faculty calls him in after the lecture..........it seems that the two missing students (both black) had heard about the "spook" question, had petitioned the dean, and the dean says to coleman that he faces the charge of racism....the book goes on for 354 more pages....
if in fact the English were using spade as the word for a digging tool at that time.
In fact, the original meaning of word spade for a tool for digging and cutting ground in accordance with OED dates back to c725, which is recorded in Corpus Glossary (1921) by W. M Lindsay. In The suburban gardener, and villa companion by by John Claudius Loudon (8 April 1783 – 14 December 1843), a Scottish landscape architect, two kinds of spades for drain digging were even illustrated: The suburban gardener, and villa companion So it is indisputable that spade and its variant forms the English have been using as the word for a digging tool have prevailed for ages.
No doubt Cecily meant to speak frankly, but what is a spade to her? I'd like to know what the common understanding(s) of what a spade was meant to be in that idiomatic phrase in England at that time.
Here is Century Dictionary's definition of to call a spade a spade: to call things by their proper names, even though these may seem homely or coarse; speak plainly and without mincing matters. Various unnecessary conjectures have been made as to the supposed occult origin of this phrase; but it means what it says- to call a simple thing by its simple name, without circumlocution or affected elegance.
And OED also shows to call a spade a spade means “to use plain or blunt language; to be straightforward to the verge of rudenessâ€. So in the context of the conversations between Cecily and Gwendolen, it is pretty clear that being straightforward and blunt, Cecily used this phrase simply saying that she's just telling the truth.
As to why spade is used in this phrase instead of something else, please refer to the etymology of this phrase, which seems to be a mistranslation as ligo “shovel†by Erasmus in his Apophthegmatum opus.(To call a spade a spade)
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