Whats the origin of the expression, “the pot calling the kettle black”?
This is from The Phrase Finder Web site. “The pot calling the kettle black 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.”” http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287950.
