Monday, September 15, 2008

fess up

I learnt from Mark Mason of Chichester University at Initial Ministerial Education on Saturday the expression “fess up”. I tried it out on Mrs Lloyd and a couple of people at church and it was old hat to them, but to me it was a revelation.


The phrase, which I believe is common among the young people, is not a Turkish greeting and does not involve raising one’s head gear but means to confess or admit. For example, “I must fess up at the beginning of this lecture that I am a Christian and therefore I don’t buy into all this postmodern mumbo-jumbo I am going to seek to explain to you.”


Mr Mason belongs to an emerging church and I have no idea whether they also use the expression in a liturgical context, fessing up their sins in the fess before they abs them off, perhaps? This could be a Fresh Expression indeed.

3 comments:

Gerv said...

I think "fess up" is probably a synonym for "admit" rather than "confess" in the sense of confessing sin.

Marc Lloyd said...

How are you distinguish admitting and confessing sin?

Gerv said...

Sorry, I was insufficiently clear. What I meant was:

I think that in contemporary use "fess up" is probably a synonym for "admit", in the general sense (i.e. "You fancy Mary - come on, 'fess up!"), rather than "confess" in the more formal, solemn sense of confessing sin.

In other words, the word has changed meaning as well as form.