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What is the origin of the idiom 'the pot calling the kettle black'?
Wiki User
∙ 9y ago
Criticism from someone who is just as bad.
Wiki User
∙ 9y ago
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What idiom describes a person yelling at his friends for being to loud?
That's a pot calling the kettle black.
What idiom might apply to a person who yelled at his friends because they were talking too loudly?
thats the pot calling the kettle black
What does pot and kettle mean?
That is someone criticizing another for an action that he himself has done or for a characteristic that he himself shares. It refers a cooking container criticizing another cooking container for becoming blackened through use despite the first container being equally blackened.The phrase is used to point out somebody's hypocrisy.On old wood stoves the pot and kettle were usually blackened from soot, therefor if the Pot were to insult the Kettle by calling it black it would be insulting itself in the process since it was the same.Therefore when you accuse someone of doing something that you do yourself you are like the pot who calls the kettle blackThis idiom refers to a hypocrite or accusing someone of being hypocritical. If I am lying but call you a liar you could say, Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. If you are overweight and yet tell me to watch what I eat, I could say, That's the pot calling the kettle black.example citation:"But how many conservatives who are targets of such slurs know these liberals are indulging in one of the greatest intellectual ruses in history? How many realize it's a matter of the red-faced pot calling the kettle black?"When someone accuses another of a fault like lying, sloth or greed this phrase is used to counter accuse. For example, if you were spying on your girlfriend's e-mails and she found out about it while she was spying on your e-mails her accusation that you didn't trust her could be countered with, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, since she also has trust issues. This comes from a period when pots and kettles were both made out of cast iron, so both the pot and the kettle were black.The kettle calling the pot black, both are black, so it refers to a person who is telling another person that they are doing something wrong when they are doing the same thing. for example a smoker telling another smoker that they shouldn't smoke. a thief calling someone else a thief. etcThe Pot and the Kettle are both black. Is often used by a person condemning other people for something they do themselves. So if a person (the pot) is accusing someone (the kettle) of doing something they actually do. They are both actually the same (black) therefore the pot has not right to condemn the kettle without actually condemning themselves.
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