Jim recently (ish) wrote to ask me about this line he read in Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz:

At the time, I hadn’t completed a deal with the BBC and the whole thing could have gone west.

In The Prodigal Tongue I wrote quite a bit about how differences in prototype structures for word meanings can lead to miscommunication between BrE and AmE speakers, and I've written about such differences here on the blog with reference to soup and bacon sandwiches. This past week I was faced with an example I'd never considered before: fudge. 

I'm sure I've never considered it because I have no interest in eating the stuff. I don't even really like walking by the fudge shops in Brighton with their sickly smells pouring out onto the (BrE) pavement/(AmE) sidewalk. But then Welsh-linguist-in-the-US Gareth Roberts ran this Twitter poll and I thought "Oh, yeah. That's true, isn't it?"

First thing to note: fudge in its food sense is an Americanism, and it seems to have been mostly chocolate at the start. The OED's first citation for it comes from a Michigan periodical in 1896 and reads "Fudges, a kind of chocolate bonbons." Wikipedia notes that a recipe for "Vassar chocolates" (made at the college/university in the 1890s) was actually vanilla fudge—which seems to say that fudge could be considered to be the poor student's chocolate, no matter the flavo(u)r.

At least some of the North American 'no' votes were Canadians laying a claim for maple fudge, but other Canadians agreed with most Americans that in North America fudge can be assumed to be chocolate unless otherwise specified, while BrE respondents mostly said it was vanilla unless otherwise specified. As a result, chocolate fudge turns up more in BrE than in AmE:

I should note that 20 of the 41 UK hits for chocolate fudge are followed by cake and a few more are followed by other nouns like frosting or biscuits. There's only 1 chocolate fudge cake in the AmE data, but if you look for fudge cake there, you get double fudge cake, which (I'm willing to bet) any American would interpret as an extra chocolatey cake. (The BrE data include no double fudge cakes but one double fudge chocolate cake, underscoring that you need to mention chocolate because fudge doesn't mean chocolate in BrE.)

For BrE speakers, chocolate is contrary to the prototype, and so needs specification. Looking for fudge recipes on BBC Good Food, the 'classic fudge recipe' (pictured right) and plain ol' fudge are flavo(u)red with vanilla only.

the actual jar, 2014

AmE also has hot fudge, which is a thick chocolate sauce that needs to be heated to make it pourable. One of my best blogger moments was when a US reader came to see me talk in Reading (England) while she was on her holiday/vacation. Knowing she would see me and knowing that I went to college/university in western Massachusetts she brought me a jar of hot fudge from Herrell's, a Northampton, MA ice cream shop that happened (she didn't know this) to be in the same building as where I held my first full-time job. I think I heated up one bit of it for an ice cream (orig. AmE) sundae. The rest I ate spoon by spoon straight out of the fridge over the next few months. Hot fudge is not literally heated fudge, but instead fudge here "Designat[es] sweet foods having the rich flavour and dense consistency associated with (esp. chocolate) fudge". The OED marks that definition as "Originally and chiefly U.S."

Back in the UK, Cadbury Fudge is bar of chocolate-coated fudge in the BrE sense. They typically come in a small size and are the kind of thing that children with not-too-much pocket money might get after school.

This led me to wonder if fudge is used differently as a colo(u)r name in the two places and sure enough, this is what happens when you search for "fudge paint color" in the USA:

So, if you're travel(l)ing to another country and need to describe yourself to the person who'll be picking you up from the airport, I'd advise against saying you'll be the person in the fudge-colo(u)red jacket.

A few more fudge facts:

• The meaning 'to do in "a clumsy, makeshift, or dishonest manner"' (OED) is over 200 years older than the food meaning. That came from an earlier word fadge, and it's thought that the vowel alteration was symbolic: people fudged the pronunciation to indicate they were talking about something fudged.
  
  Fudge the food might well get its name from the fact that it was a way to make candy/sweets at home, "fudging" the usual processes for making fancy chocolates and the like.
  
  
• The exclamation Oh fudge! similarly predates the candy/sweet. I'm sure many people these days think of it as a minced way of saying another word that starts with fu, but the first interjection use of fudge in the OED in the 1700s predates their first use of that other word as an interjection (and the one in Green's Dictionary of Slang) by nearly 200 years. The original use of fudge as an interjection meant something more like "Nonsense!"
  
  
• The usual BrE mnemonic for the high notes of the treble clef is Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. In AmE I learned Every Good Boy Does Fine, but a more recent AmE version is Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. Click here for an n-gram chart, showing the rise of fudge.
  
  

Chiefly Brit. Originally: a traditional theatrical performance, developing out of commedia dell'arte, and comprising a dumbshow, which later developed into a comic dramatization with stock characters of Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, and Columbine; = harlequinade n. a (now chiefly hist.). Now usually: a theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy, and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually staged around Christmas; this style of performance as a genre. (Now the usual sense.)

The now-traditional English pantomime developed in the 19th cent. and was originally limited to a short opening scene to the earlier harlequinade in which Harlequin was handed his wand. Its popularity led to its extension into a full dramatized story with the harlequinade first relegated to a short scene at the end and then disappearing altogether. This process was accompanied by the development of a new set of conventional characters, typically including a man in the chief comic female role (see pantomime dame n. at Compounds 2), a woman in the main male role (see principal boy n. at principal adj., n., and adv. Special uses, and an animal played by actors in comic costume (see pantomime horse n. at Compounds 2).Recorded earliest in pantomime entertainment at Compounds 1.

Originally: (Classical Hist.) a theatrical performer popular in the Roman Empire who represented mythological stories through gestures and actions; = pantomimus n. Hence, more generally: an actor, esp. in comedy or burlesque, who expresses meaning by gesture or mime; a player in a dumbshow.

This one is from CBeebies, the television channel for preschoolers, and has a little explanation about pantos at the start.  I think it's a pretty decent example of the genre.

This one is from Paul O'Grady's (orig AmE) talk show/(BrE) chat show, and is a bit more in the 'adult' vein (as much as one can be on daytime television--before the watershed). O'Grady is the performer formerly known as Lily Savage.  It's peopled with a cast of household names in the UK who will be completely unknown in the US (including my university's chancellor) and it's studded with cultural references that will pass unnoticed by a non-UK audience.

A:  I'm going to a panto.

B: Oh no, you're not!

A: Oh yes, I am!

B: It's behind you!!

c. trans. To pretend to sing or play an instrument as a recording is being played; esp. to mouth the words of (a song) in time with an accompanying soundtrack. Also intr., with to, along with, etc.

1. I have never seen the (AmE) TV show/(BrE) programme Glee.
2. I have never voluntarily belonged to a choir.  ('Chorus' class in school was my living purgatory.)
3. I have consistently found excuses to leave early when required to attend choir concerts.
4. I hated that Journey song the first time (a)round, and I hate it even more now that it's re-released in a form that is mind-bendingly more over-earnest than the original.  

The comedy-musical show charts the story of a group of teenagers in a US high school show choir, or glee club.

A show choir (originally called 'swing choir') is a group of people who combine choral singing with dance movements, sometimes within the context of a specific idea or story.
Show choir traces its origins as an activity in the United States during the mid-1960s, though cultural historians have been unable to determine the date and location of the first "true" show choir group [...]. Two groups of touring performers, Up with People and The Young Americans, traveled extensively throughout the country in the 1960s, performing what could be called the show choir concept. When students and directors of the day saw these organizations, they would, in turn, start similar groups at their high schools.

glee-club, a society formed for the practice and performance of glees and part-songs

A glee club is a musical group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets.

Although the term "glee club" is still used in some places, including the American TV series Glee, glee clubs have largely been replaced by the show choir in schools throughout the United States. Show choirs tend to be larger and more complex than the traditional glee club.

The first named Glee Club was founded in Harrow School, in London, England, in 1787.^[1] Glee clubs were very popular in the UK from then until the mid 1850s but by then they were gradually being superseded by choral societies. By the mid-20th century, proper glee clubs were no longer common. However, the term remained (and remains) in use, primarily for choirs found in Japanese and North American colleges and universities, despite the fact that most American glee clubs are choruses in the standard sense and no longer perform glees.

John Redwood rocked gently with happiness. Eric Forth's tie, a modest effort of only six or seven colours, seemed to wink at us as he too rolled about in pleasure. And Ann Widdecombe does a wonderful fake laughter turn. She throws back her head, waves her arms in the air, and opens her mouth as wide as you do at the dentist, in order to imply that she might otherwise implode with the sheer effort of keeping all that hilarity inside.

If you do not have a dog, you will need to find another kind of passport to social contact. Which brings me neatly to the second type of English approach to leisure [...] — sports, games, pubs, clubs and so on. All of these relate directly to our second main method of dealing with our social dis-ease: the 'ingenious use of props and facilitators' method. (Watching the English)

A public establishment (in France, Germany or Italy) for special instruction in music and declamation. (The French form of the word is commonly used in England in speaking not only of the Conservatoire of Paris, but also, with less propriety, of the Conservatorium of Leipzig, and the Conservatorios of Italy, and is even sometimes assumed as the name of musical schools in England. In the U.S. the anglicized form conservatory is used.)

A greenhouse for tender flowers or plants; now, usually, an ornamental house into which plants in bloom are brought from the hot-house or green-house.

Without being too rigorous about it, Classical Guitar has generally preferred the word 'rendering' to the word 'rendition' to describe a performance of music, considering it to be American usage only. However, I discovered the word 'rendition' in an English review published in 1906. So it's been around for at least 103 years, though it lost some respectability recently, when it came to mean removing suspected terrorists to a remote country where they could be tortured without too much danger of the details being picked up by the international media.

But 'rendering' can bring to mind a coat of plaster, and is only fractionally better.[Colin Cooper, Editorial Consultant]

1. with the book vowel: bʊg'ē-măn'
2. with the long /o/, as in the golfing term bogey
3. with the long /u/, as in boo! or BrE boogie

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
Pyjamas*, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection
Let's get out of this place

1. U.S. = PROMENADE n. 2c.

2. = promenade concert (s.v. PROMENADE n. 4b); the Proms, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, now given annually at the Royal Albert Hall, London (also in sing.).

promenade concert, a concert at which the audience walk about instead of being seated or at which a proportion of the audience stands.

A recent "the" usage caught my ear. In the late 60s outside Philadelphia, I went to the prom. (Actually, I didn't, but if I had, I would have said "the"...definitely.) My 16-year-old daughter & her friends are going (really!) to prom. No "the", ever. I have no idea if this represents a temporal change or regional difference.