Talk:Pot calling the kettle black

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[edit] This article

i love it that this article was created for name-calling purposes, not understanding WP:WIN. now we have shakespeare and cervantes linked. LOL. it shows that keeping articles is great, deleting stupid...-- ExpImptalkcon 23:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hypocrisy

Note: this is not actually an example of hypocrisy. but more an example of a double standard (according to the wikipedia definition of hypocrisy.) Contradiction clarity needed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.92.228 (talk • contribs)

"Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person, where the stated basis for the criticism is the breach of a rule which also applies to the critic." Xiner (talk) 01:25, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Racist connotation

The article mentions that the term is considered racist, and the reason given is that the phrase usually refers to a negative aspect of character. A phrase isn't be racist because just it refers to a negative aspect of character. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.168.67.112 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 17 May 2007

The original phrase was "(n-word) calling the kettle black", so it was racist. Sasha Callahan 05:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
That's total codswallop. I suggest taking a look in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, say perhaps the entry in the 1898 edition. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 09:33, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real pots and real kettles

I have retired from the US to a village in remote province in Thailand, where we use pots and kettles over open fires every day. A pot goes on a fire as soon as the wood is kindled, and the pot gathers layers and layers of soot. It must be handled with care and set down someplace apart, for everything that comes in contact with the outside of the pot gets sooty, too. A kettle, on the other hand, is only set over glowing coals and gathers no appreciable amount of soot, so it may be set anywhere safe, but without worry about getting sooty. Inevitably, however, a kettle will become sooty, too, and a sooty kettle is valued even less than a sooty pot. Furthermore, the wide-open mouth of a pot makes it easy to keep the inside clean, however sooty the outside. The narrow-mouthed kettle, however, makes it most difficult to clean if it gets fouled inside. So there is more than meets the eye of two black objects. Unfortunately, there I have no knowledge of a similar saying in rural Thailand, though pots and kettles of markedly different status abound. Pawyilee 15:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

PS. wâa dtàe kăo ì-năo bpen eng (Thai: ว่าแต่เขาอิเหนาเป้นเอง) Enau (อิเหฺนา) is the hero of a story in verse of the same name, adapted by Siam's King Lertla from the Javanese, which gave rise to the metaphor, "As for Enau, he is the same," with the meaning of The pot calls the kettle black. word-for-word translation Pawyilee (talk) 15:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)