I learnt from Mark Mason of
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.
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3 comments:
I think "fess up" is probably a synonym for "admit" rather than "confess" in the sense of confessing sin.
How are you distinguish admitting and confessing sin?
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.
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