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Out-of-date Idiom?

Keep my mug off your wall! 75 indictments, no convictions!
Bamagan said:
I believe 'the third degree' dates to the late 19th century NYC police department under Thomas Byrnes, related to the (brutal) way he and his officers treated their prisoners and/or detainees. The term 'rogue's gallery' also comes from his administration: they literally took pictures of known criminals and placed them in a room or hallway.
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Useless and meaningless advice my father used to give me:

1. "Snap out of it!"
2. "Get your act together!"
3. "Wipe that look off your face!"
 
On this subject, I always liked the scene from 'Jumanji - Welcome to the Jungle' from 2017 when the four present day teenagers in their avatars meet another player Alex in his own avatar.

The first indication to the group that something is seriously wrong with their new friend is when Alex starts using 1990s slang, and it turns out Alex has been trapped in the game over 20 years, while thinking he had only been there a few weeks.

I thought this scene was really well done showing through use of outdated slang to reveal that things are not what they appear to be.
 
Then there's the expressions that have their meanings change. Got to be even more careful with those sneaky expressions.

Dropping a dime used to mean reporting someone, ratting them out. It came from the days when a pay phone call cost a dime. Now it means a nice pass in sports.

I can actually see how this one happened. People don't remember calls costing a dime, or even pay phones if you're under maybe twenty five. A dime is a beautiful woman. Kind of makes sense people would use that to refer to a beautiful pass or play in sports.
 
Bamagan said:
I believe 'the third degree' dates to the late 19th century NYC police department under Thomas Byrnes, related to the (brutal) way he and his officers treated their prisoners and/or detainees. The term 'rogue's gallery' also comes from his administration: they literally took pictures of known criminals and placed them in a room or hallway.
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The Third Degree originates from Free Masonry, one of their many degrees and the the toughest.
 
MrPixel said:
A common expression I grew up with was "the third degree", and I just wrote it into a story. Would younger (Gen Z) readers understand that, and, more specifically, would a Gen Z character use the expression? If not, then what would they use in the instance of expectation of a harsh interrogation?
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@MrPixel, et al,
The existing idiom you mention may well translate as something like, "to the nth degree", meaning, I believe, to the most extreme degree possible. That springs to mind immediately but I couldn't tell you where, or when, I got it.
Respectfully,
D.
 
Zootonius said:
The Third Degree originates from Free Masonry, one of their many degrees and the the toughest.
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There are lots of things which have a third degree (burns being another), but I think @Bamagan was talking about it in the sense of a very strict interrogation, and AFAICT that meaning does seem to have originated with Thomas Byrnes. (At least, I get no hits for "gave him the third degree" before the 1890s, and a lot of the early hits are associated with Byrnes.)
 
Bramblethorn said:
There are lots of things which have a third degree (burns being another), but I think @Bamagan was talking about it in the sense of a very strict interrogation, and AFAICT that meaning does seem to have originated with Thomas Byrnes. (At least, I get no hits for "gave him the third degree" before the 1890s, and a lot of the early hits are associated with Byrnes.)
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That's correct regarding my intent. I probably should have quoted the OP to make it more clear I was trying to respond to the use of the phrase as an idiomatic expression for a harsh interrogation. That being said, I was only vaguely aware that it had something to do with the masons prior to it entering the vernacular, so to speak, so I learned something too.
 
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