Pot calling the kettle black

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The phrase "Pot calling the kettle black" is an idiom, used to accuse another speaker of hypocrisy, in that the speaker disparages the subject in a way that could equally be applied to him or her. In former times cast iron pots and kettles were quickly blackened from the soot of the fire. If personified into animate objects, the pot would then be hypocritical to insult the kettle's colour.

[edit] Similar idioms in other languages

• Bangla: চালুনি কয় সুঁইরে, "তোর পিছনে ফুঁটো" ("Mesh sieve tells the needle", "You have a hole in your back")
• Bulgarian: Присмял се хърбел на щърбел. ("Nick laughed at dent")
• Chinese: "五十步笑百步", "乌鸦笑猪黑" ("Soldier who fled off the battle fifty steps afar laughs at those a hundred steps afar."), ("Crow laughing at the pig for being black")
• Croatian: Rugao se lonac loncu, a oba crna. ("Pot mocked another pot, and they were both black")
• Dutch: De pot verwijt de ketel dat hij zwart ziet ("The pot reproaches the kettle for looking black")
• Estonian: Pada sõimab katelt - ühed mustad mõlemad ("The pot reproaches the kettle - yet both of them are black")
• Finnish: Pata kattilaa soimaa ("The pot reproaches the kettle")
• French: La pelle se moque du fourgon ("The shovel mocks the poker"),^[1] L'hôpital se moque de la charité ("The hospital mocks the charity")
• German: Ein Esel schilt den andern Langohr. ("One donkey chides the other for being a long-ear")
• Greek: Είπε ο γάιδαρος τον πετεινό κεφάλα ("The donkey called the rooster a fathead")
• Hebrew: הפוסל במומו פוסל ("The disqualifier disqualifies based on his own fault")
• Hungarian: Bagoly mondja verébnek, hogy nagyfülű ("The owl tells the sparrow that it has big ears")
• Italian: Il bue che dice cornuto all'asino or Il bue che dà del cornuto all'asino ("The ox labelling the donkey cornute")
• Korean: "똥 묻은 개가 겨 묻은 개 나무란다" ("The dung-stained dog scoldes the chaff-stained dog")
• Persian: ديگ به ديگ ميگه روت سياه ("The pot sells the pot your face is black")
• Polish: Przyganiał kocioł garnkowi ("Kittle is getting at pot")
• Portuguese: O sujo falando do mal-lavado ("The dirty slandering the unclean [as being unclean]") / Diz o roto ao nu ("One with torn clothes mocks the naked" / Olha quem fala ("Look who is talking")
• Romanian: Râde ciob de oală spartă ("The broken piece of potterz laughs at the broke pot.")
• Spanish: Apártate que me tiznas, dijo la sartén al cazo ("Move away, you are blackening me, said the pan to the pot") El burro hablando de orejas ("The donkey talking about ears")
• Venezuelan Spanish: Cachicamo diciéndole a morocoy conchuo ("An armadillo telling a turtle it is too hard shelled")
• Thai: ว่าแต่เขา อิเหนาเป้นเอง (wâa dtàe kăo ì-năo bpen eng) ("As for Enau, he is the same") Look up อิเหนา
• Turkish: Tencere dibin kara, seninki benden kara ("Pot, your bottom's black; no, yours is blacker than mine")

[edit] Uses in literature

• Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote — "said the frying-pan to the kettle, get away, blackbreech"^[2]
• Henry Fielding in Covent Garden Journal — "Dares thus the kettle to rebuke our sin!/Dares thus the kettle say the pot is black!"
• William Penn in Some fruits of Solitude - "For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality... is for the Pot to call the Kettle black."

[edit] References