A NOTE ON FUDGE & FUDGING

The following caption appeared on the Front Page of

The New York Times (April 20,2020):

           YOUNG LEADER, FUDGING
               FACTS FINDS THE RIGHT

The news caused me to be curious how fudge & fudging came to be associated with avoiding telling the truth or providing misleading information (TRUMP FUDGE would be a best-selling product).

 One explanation can be found in C.C. Bombaugh, in Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature, edited and annotated by Martin Gardner (New York: Dover Publications, 1961) . Bombaugh’s reference is Disraeli’s

quoting from an old pamphlet  titled Remarks Upon the

Navy. The author of the pamphlet says that “There was in our time one Captain  Fudge, commander of a merchantman, who upon his return from a voyage, how ill fraught soever his ship was, always brought home his own

crop of lies; so much so that now, aboard ship, the sailors when they hear a great lie told, cry out, ‘You fudge it’” The ship was the Black Eagle, and the time, Charles II; and thence the monosyllabic name of its untruthful captain comes to us for exclamation when we have reason to believe assertions ill-founded.

  (page 199)

Eric Partridge, on the other hand, provides a more Academic approach in his Origins: A Short EtymologicalDictionary of Modern English, giving a Germanic origin:

 Fudge ! Nonsense! Is prob of Gmc origin; fudge, or contrive, to counterfeit – whence the sweet or candy fudge – may be for ‘to forge, to get on well, itself app of LG origin.

I think Partidge’s etymology is more far fetched than the story in the Navy pamphlet. You do not forge fudge. And, in what way is fudge counterfeit?

The Online Etymological Dictionary supports Disraeli:

Fudge –put together clumsily or dishonestly,” by 1771 (perhaps from 17c.); perhaps an alteration of fadge “make suit, fit” (1570s), a verb of unknown origin. The verb fudge later had an especial association with sailors and log books. The traditional story of the origin of the interjection fudge “lies! nonsense!” (1766; see fudge (n.2)) traces it to a sailor’s retort to anything considered lies or nonsense, from Captain Fudge, “who always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies” [Isaac Disraeli, 1791, citing a pamphlet from 1700]. It seems there really was a late 17c. Captain Fudge, called “Lying Fudge,” and perhaps his name reinforced this form of fadge in the sense of “contrive without the necessary materials.

Of course a colorful story is worth preserving. As the newspaper editor says at the conclusion to John Ford’s great western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact print the legend.” Eric Partridge be damned.

***

LA TRIVIATA #35

by Louis Phillips

NOTE TO THE READER

All right, I know that more than a few of the questions in the various La Triviata quizzes  are unfair and often impossible for many readers, to answer. But the point of a quiz is not to test intelligence or even cultural and verbal awareness. Not by a long shot. The point is to have fun, to pass some time pleasantly while picking up tidbits of useful and useless information. I hope it’s a good party game or a good quiz to share with a friend or two. Actually I hope it is just a good quiz. And sometimes a useful one. If you get 6 correct you are doing very good. If you get 9 or more correct you are in the Genius

Category.

—LJP

              1. What should you do with a burgoo?

                 A. sail it

   B. plant it

   C.  live in it

   D. eat it

2. “Home Plate” was the name of a Sudbury farm

      owned by what Hall of Famer baseball player?

      3. During World War II this movie actress  (Morocco

and Shanghai Express ) and singer gave so many performances

for U.S. troops, she was made an honorary colonel. Who was she?

    4. In what country is the secessionist Republic of Biafra located?

  5. The first black man to be crowned heavyweight champion of the world became an expert on fleas and ran the flea circus at Hubert’s Museum on

West 42^nd Street in New York. Who was he?

6. The first television commercial on public television occurred on June 27 1941 on WNBT in

New York City. What was that first product to be advertised on TV?

     A. a Bulova Watch

     B. Pillsbury Dough

     C. a Desoto Automobile

      D. Jello

7.  The first word of this play by Shakespeare is also                  

      the first word of the title. What play?

 8. When the Plaza Hotel opened its doors in New

    York City in 1907, how much did it it cost to rent

    a single room with a bath ?

       A) $2.00

       B)  $4.00

       C) $6.00

       D)  $8.00

   9) Please distinguish between Sarawak and the

        acronym SWAK which sometimes appeared on

        the envelopes of mailed letters.

10.  This very popuar cartoon character was created by Grim Natwick and was supposedly based on the popular singer Helen Kane. Later this cartoon character was frequently seen in animated films with  Felix the Cat, Who was she?

11. “Reader, I married him.” is the final line of what classic English novel?

12. What great French poet was imprisoned for 6 days  in 1911 when he was wrongly suspected of being connected with the theft of the Mona Lisa?

13. What is the oldest organized sport in North America?

14. After spending a few hours at the Rijksmuseum, you decide to unwind by taking a long walk in

Vondelpark. In what city are you in?

 15. What is an Annie Oakley?

‘

16. Captain Hook’s pirate ship in Peter Pan is described by James Barrie as “a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every  beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the

cannibal of the seas and she floated immune in the horror of her name.”  What is the ship’s name?

17.  According to The Encyclopedia Britannica this great classical composer’s marriage to Maria Anna Keller in 1760 produced neither a pleasant, peaceful home nor any children. Haydn’s wife did not understand music and showed no interest in her husband’s work. Her disdain went to the extremes of using his manuscripts for pastry pan linings.  Who was the composer?

18. Who was the only United States President who was not married?

19. If you are using a mashie what sport are you playing?

20. The cheese stands alone in what song?

ANSWERS

1. D. It’s a spicy stew

 2.  Babe Ruth

3. Marlene Dietrich

 4. Nigeria

5. Jack Johnson . In 1908 he became the first African American to win the world heavyweight crown when he knocked out the reigning champ, Tommy Burns.

6. Bulova Watch

7. As You Like It

8. $4.00

9. Sarawak is a country located on the northwest corner of Borneo. SWAK meant Sealed With a Kiss.

10.  Betty Boop. The name comes from Helen Kane’s scat phrase “boob boop-a-boop” in her rendition

of  “I Wanna Be Loved By You.”

          11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

          12. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

    13. Lacrosse

  14.  Amsterdam

   15. An Annie Oakley is a free pass, usually to a sporting event. The pass received its name because it was punched with numerous holes, a tribute to the great American sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

16.Jolly Roger

17. Joseph Haydn

18. John Buchanan

19. Golf, It’s a name for the 5 iron

20. Farmer in the Dell

        

 

PHOTOGRAPHY
 
The last thing left in nature is the beauty of women, so I am very happy photographing it.
      
Peter Beard
 
 
      I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. It is important to see what is invisible to others—perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness. Also, it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.
 
      Robert Frank.  Statement 1958.
 
 
  Photographs are perhaps more like prisms than mirrors. They do not duplicate reality so much as offer a changed direction or view of it.
 
     David Goldblatt
 
   First is the impulse to photograph. It begins with something in the external world, the ‘real’ world outside my own inside that draws me. It has ‘isness’, a quality of being, that excites and that I want, somehow, to distill
in photographs.
 
     David Goldblatt
 
 
**
 
CLEMENTINE
 
"I sure like that name, Clementine."
     My Darling Clementine (film)
 
 
I confess: I have never
Slept with a woman named Clementine.
A failure of nerve, no doubt,
Or not being in the right place
At the right time.  Oh sing this tune:
I have missed most of America,
The Old West with its gold mines,
Sagebrush, barbed wire, sour wine,
Petticoats on the laundry line,
Saloon courtrooms,
& early morning hangings.
 
 Listen here, Greenhorn,
Gather around the campfire
To  dry out your britches
 While Black Bart sings his doggerel:
"I labored long and hard for bread,
 For honor and for riches,
 But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons of bitches."
 
I  too have labored hard for bread,
A place to rest my head,
A couple of acres, a homestead,
But so much life, plain & fine,
Has passed me by. Look,
I didn’t plan on being old,
It just happened sooner
Than I expected. Not going to whine
About it. Yesterday, about 5
In the afternoon, I sat
In front of Trout’s General Store,
Talking on & off about women
With names like nectarines,
Their sharp breasts
Perfumed with desire.
 
Louis Phillips


** 


THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
 
Teacher: Well, I wonder what are my chances this morning 
of interesting you kids in John Keats?
Duane Jackson: None at all.
(Dialogue from the movie)
 
 
There are small towns in Texas
& points beyond
Where residents make up
 
Affectionate names for traffic lights.
Nothing to do
But get drunk, get laid, 
 
Listen to car radios play
Frankie Lane,
Drive around all night
 
Murmuring pick-up lines
To screw honky-tonk angels.
Sometimes a heifer will do.
 
The Royal movie-theater,
 Plays Red River
For what feels like forever,
 
John Wayne in fantasies
Of high school girls
& their mothers too.
 
No more popcorn.
Night lifts high skirts.
Nothing to see.
 
The old Truth/Beauty
yadda  yada.
Daylight is for funerals:
 
That lucky sonuvabitch!
He found one way
to get outta this cow shit plaza.
 
Louis Phillips
 **
P.S. My son Ian Phillips' documentary -COACH JAKE-
can be streamed for free on Amazon. His short
documentary about young girls playing chess can
be seen Friday (April 24) at the Yonkers virtual
Film Festival,
 

ER MOVE NEXT Award Winning Girls Chess Documentary by Ian Phillips.  In the Spring of 2017, Ian Phillips documented the rise of an all-girls scholastic chess team in NYC. As they prepare for the Nationals in Chicago, the girls learn how friendship and sisterhood translate into wins on the board. FALLEN SWAN Award Winning Animated Short Film by Win Leerasanthanah A baby swan discovers its potential to escape out of a well, and must overcome its fear and doubt to succeed.And other surprises!Info, Trailer & Tix HERE

Although each screening may be a bit different, generally the way it works is this:  1. Buy one ticket per connection (i.e. a whole family can watch from the same screen). 2. We’ll send you a link to the film(s) on Thursday. 3. You can  screen the film(s) at your convenience.  4. We’ll meet on ZOOM Friday evening, where YoFi will moderate a post-screening talkback with the filmmakers and you’ll have the chance to ask questions