Re: Pot
calling the kettle black....
Posted by ESC
on January 24, 2003 In Reply to: Re: Pot calling
the kettle black.... posted by James Briggs on January 24, 2003
: : I know what this refers too, but where did the saying come from? And what
does it mean?
: It means don't criticise someone for imperfections because you,
yourself, are also imperfect in many ways.
: Where it comes from I'm not sure,
but the phrase was in regular use by my mother and grandmother in the 1930s. I
guess it's just an allegory.
POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK - The "Morris Dictionary
of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris has more detail about this
phrase than other reference books: "There are two slightly varying interpretations
of this phrase, which is used figuratively to apply to persons. One theory is
that such action is ridiculous because they are both black, presumably from standing
for years on a wood-burning stove or in a fireplace. (Note from ESC: iron pots
and kettles are already black when new.) So the pot as well as the kettle is black
(evil) and neither one is better than the other. This supports the explanation
of the phrase as given in 'Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable': 'Said of
one accusing another of faults similar to those committed by himself.' The other
theory is that the pot was black but the kettle polished copper and the pot, seeing
its own blackness reflected in the shiny surface of the kettle, maintained that
the kettle, not it, was actually black. In any event, it seems that the best,
if slangy, retort by the kettle may have been: 'Look who's talking!' Usually the
source of the phrase is given as Cervantes' 'Don Quixote' and simply as 'The pot
calls the kettle black,' but another version of Don Quixote comes out as: 'Said
the pot to the kettle, get away black-face!' Henry Fielding, eighteenth century
writer, reverses the roles in 'Covent Garden Tragedy': 'Dares thus the kettle
to rebuke our sin!/Dares thus the kettle say the pot is black!' Even Shakespeare
used the idea in 'Troilus and Cressida': 'The raven chides blackness.'"
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