Polenta vs Mush

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It took me awhile in watching cooking shows to figure out what Polenta was. Then it came to me. Polenta is corn mush. Here where I live in Ohio, we make corned mush, usually just for breakfast. We just call it mush. I grew up eating it. It it is plain corn meal that gets boiled like oatmeal, or more like hominy grits. You can eat it warm like that. It is also poured hot into a baking dish and allowed to get cold. Then it is sliced and fried. You eat it with pancake syrup. Now, because of the cooking shows and recipes found online, you can make it in many of the polenta recipes. Oh, one other thing, in the refrigerated section at the ends of the meats and dairy, where you find the pastries, frozen cookie dough, etc., you can find tubes of cold corn mush, take it home and slice it up to fry. No pre-cooking needed. I wonder if someone a few decades ago or maybe longer, decided that corned mush needed to be made more presentable, as though mush was just too hillbilly for these fancy, smancy restaurants. What do you think? Which is it for you? Polenta or mush? How do you use ground cornmeal?