Answers:
From The Phrase Finder
Does anyone know the origin of the phrase
: : "The third degree"
: The phrase means an intense interrogation, usually by the police.
: I am not 100% on this but I always thought the phrase referred to the third degree ceremony of Free Masons.
: The third degree is the highest of all the degrees or levels of membership in masonry.
: The third degree ceremony consists of an interrogation of how well you know your mysticism.
third degree burns? it's just a guess but it could work because third degree burns are the worst you can get, and when you give someone 'the third degree' you're putting them under intense 'heat', so to speak.
intense interrogation by police," 1900, probably a reference to Third Degree of master mason in Freemasonry (1772), the conferring of which included an interrogation ceremony.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term...
also:
- In police interrogation, originally torture, then colloquially an intensive rough interrogation to extract information or a confession - the term "Third Degree" being an ironic reference to the Masonic ritual which involves a (symbolic) moral interrogation and illustration that right overcomes wrong.
- In Freemasonry, the test to become a Master Mason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/third_degre...
See: http://www.sacred-texts.com/mas/dun/dun0... for a description of the ritual
Third degree -
In police interrogation, originally torture, then colloquially an intensive rough interrogation to extract information or a confession - the term "Third Degree" being an ironic reference to the Masonic ritual which involves a (symbolic) moral interrogation and illustration that right overcomes wrong.
I am so not sure about this that I really shouldn't answer, but I want to guess, it seems.
The expression may have come from a manual written by that great group the C.I.A., called "KUBARK Counter Intelligence--July 1963." This manual was used for 'no touch' interrogation by the C.I.A. for the next three decades (at least?)... but I can't find the manual nor a place where you might find it. The guys buried it, I'm sure.
Anyway, that's just a guess. It might also be an off-shoot of the phrase that first meant the pain of a third-degree burn...
Anything negative is from the left
Salam
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