Why did the pot call the kettle black?

Answer 1

Fair's Fair

Answer 2

Meaning

The notion of a criticism a person is making of another could equally well apply to themself.

Origin
This phrase originates in Cervantes' Don Quixote, or at least in Thomas Shelton's 1620 translation - Cervantes Saavedra's History of Don Quixote:

"You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, 'Avant, black-browes'."

The first person who is recorded as using the phrase in English was William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in his Some fruits of solitude, 1693:

"For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality... is for the Pot to call the Kettle black."

Shakespeare had previously expressed a similar notion in a line in Troilus and Cressida, 1601- "The raven chides blackness."

Answer 3

Because every time it called the kettle white, it got hit over the head with a ladle.

Answer 4

they used to `black lead `cooking ranges ,pans and kettles(origonally a large type of pot)to make them look neat and tidy.
the expression litterally means two like objects arguing about being different when they are both basically the same.

Answer 5

lol thats a popular saying lik if a fat guy called another fat guy fat.. then the one that got called fat would say "well isnt that just the pot that called the kettle black" because they both get black because they're both put on a stove..

Answer 6

Hello, When it fell into the fire looking to see what jumped out the frying pan.

Answer 7

You must be A Bengali Menace.

Answer 8

Because it is easier to point out faults in others than it is to accept responsibility for your own faults.

Answer 9

To overt the attention from himself.

Answer 10

I don't know, but Uncle Wiggly told me it was so. My guess is that, like many others, he was a hypocrite.