words: Fudge

Aspiring Tory leader William Hague has accused the former government of "constantly shifting fudge" and has promised that if he gets to run the party he will put an end to indiscipline. Germany has been accused of fudging her budget figures to qualify for the single currency. Anglicans have been accused of fudging the abortion issue, and the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority of fudging its recent report. Enough fudges for one week, you might think. But some of them are different from others. One takes it that the fudges attributed to the Tories and the Church of England are matters of compromise, while that of the safety authority is presumably a matter of pusillanimity. The charge against Germany is much graver, and suggests that she has been cooking the books. I don't think Mr Hague meant to say that about honest John Major.

This would, however, have been nearer the pristine meaning of the word. I am told that Fudge is still a common West Country surname, implying no reproach, but there was a 17th-century Captain Fudge whose habit of using what Ann Widdecombe has called "semantic prestidigitation" earned him the nickname "lying Fudge". The OED doubts this explanation for the word, though it's certain that by the 18th century "to fudge" meant to tamper with the evidence, as well as to botch things up. The benevolent Mr Burchell in The Vicar of Wakefield growls "Fudge" when he hears people telling lies, but the dictionary thinks this was no more than "an inarticulate expression of indignant disgust". Meanwhile the great Walter Skeat says it comes from the Low German futsch! which he translates as "Begone!".

None of this seems to relate to the sweetmeat made of sugar, butter and milk, but it may just be significant that humbug has a similar double meaning. Both involve cooking up a number of ingredients to make something else, which I suppose is what fudging, in its worst sense, amounts to.