Amos, thanks for that information. The word "squat" as given in thsoe examples is probably similar to "squash" meaning "to quickly and irrevocably stop something that was being said or done.

Here's a definition for "squash" from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=squash


"squash
To put a end to.
Resolve.

"You need to squash that beef between you and your dad if you expect to make progress"

by DetroitSlang May 15, 2003

-snip-

Perhaps "squash" is a folk etymology form of "squat". However, the two words that have that same meaning may have come from different sources. The word "squash" may have come from the vegetable. Maybe the definition "to irrevocably stop something" came from the fact that if a squash falls on the ground and splatters all over the place, it certainly isn't good for anything.

**

Here's a short story about a time I heard the word "squash" used in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

From 1998-2006 I collected children's rhymes, mostly from groups of African American girls & boys {about 7-12 years old} at summer camps & after-school programs. One handclap rhyme that I learned was very widely know was "Tweedlelee" {Rockin Robin}. In 2001, I asked a group of children at a neighborhood group if they knew that rhyme. Just about all the children began to "sing" that rhyme while two pairs of girls {who I selected from the many hands that were raised} showed me how they did a handclap routine to it. However, when the group got to the end of one verse, in a firm voice a teenage girl who was working with the younger children said "Squash it!". Just about all the group immediately stopped chanting the rhyme, but a little girl who was caught up in the recitation, continued saying the risque verse "he had a piece of glass/stuck up his..." But before she could get out the-word-that shouldn't-be-said-in front-of-adults, the teenage girl said "Squash it!" even louder, and the girl abruptly stopped singing.

I'm happy to say that, subsequently, I was successful in getting both "clean" versions and "dirty" versions of this children's rhyme-though not from that group of children at that particular time.