Why do we say "The pot calling the kettle black"?

Meaning:

The phrase is used to point out the hypocrisy of faulting someone with a trait or action of which the accuser is also guilty.

Background:

The concept of pointing out this type of hypocrisy has its origins in prehistory. One of the earliest versions of this theme comes from Aesop’s Fables (written between 620-560 BCE). It tells the story of a mother crab who tells her offspring to walk straight; the child crab replies, asking its mother to demonstrate (and of course, she can’t).

Another variation on the theme comes from the Words of Ahiqar, a collection of Aramaic proverbs from around 500 BCE. In it, a bramble accuses a pomegranate tree of protecting its fruit with thorns, and the pomegranate responds that that bramble is all thorns itself.

This idea also appears in the Bible, Talmud and other ancient texts.

Specifically comparing a pot and kettle dates to the days when all cooking was done over an open flame. The smoke from the fire caused soot to accumulate on the cookware, making it black. The phrase is thought to originate from Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Written in the early 17th century, the Spanish text reads, “Dijo el sartén a la caldera, Quítate allá ojinegra,” which translates to “The frying pan said to the cauldron, Get out of there, black-eyed.” English writer Thomas Shelton translated it in 1620 as “You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, ‘Avant, black-brows.’”

English-language versions began to proliferate throughout the 17th century, with the exact wording of the current expression coming from William Penn in his 1682 work Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims. In it, he writes, "If thou hast not conquer'd thy self in that which is thy own particular Weakness, thou hast no Title to Virtue, tho' thou art free of other Men's. For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality, an Atheist against Idolatry, a Tyrant against Rebellion, or a Lyer against Forgery, and a Drunkard against Intemperance, is for the Pot to call the Kettle black."

An alternative (although much less common) interpretation of the phrase comes from an 1876 edition of St. Nicholas magazine – a popular American monthly aimed at children. A poem included in the issue has the pot calling the kettle black, but the kettle responding that it’s so shiny the pot is really seeing its own reflection (so the pot is the only one with a flaw).

In our present age of brevity the saying has become abbreviated to “Pot, meet kettle” or even just “Pot, kettle.”

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