That’s an interpretation from 1876, but the expression is much older than stainless steel. Originally it’s not that the kettle isn’t black, it’s that the pot is equally sooty from the ashes they both sit in. Which is a better fit for MTG and the Boeb, both tarred by the filth of the GOP.
From Wikipedia:
Origin
The earliest appearance of the idiom is in Thomas Shelton’s 1620 translation of the Spanish novel Don Quixote. The protagonist is growing increasingly restive under the criticisms of his servant Sancho Panza, one of which is that “You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, ‘Avant, black-browes’.”[3] The Spanish text at this point reads: Dijo el sartén a la caldera, Quítate allá ojinegra (Said the pan to the pot, get out of there black-eyes).[4] It is identified as a proverb (refrán) in the text, functioning as a retort to the person who criticises another of the same defect that he plainly has. Among several variations, the one where the pan addresses the pot as culinegra (black-arse) makes clear that they are dirtied in common by contact with the cooking fire.[5]
This translation was also recorded in England soon afterwards as “The pot calls the pan burnt-arse” in John Clarke’s collection of proverbs, Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina (1639).
Wiki goes on to give the 1876 example, with the shiny kettle, as well.
The pot. The origin of the saying is a cast iron pot sees its own reflection in the shiny, stainless steel kettle and sees all black (the cast iron).
So it’s really projection. Calling out others what you see in yourself.
That’s an interpretation from 1876, but the expression is much older than stainless steel. Originally it’s not that the kettle isn’t black, it’s that the pot is equally sooty from the ashes they both sit in. Which is a better fit for MTG and the Boeb, both tarred by the filth of the GOP.
From Wikipedia:
Origin
The earliest appearance of the idiom is in Thomas Shelton’s 1620 translation of the Spanish novel Don Quixote. The protagonist is growing increasingly restive under the criticisms of his servant Sancho Panza, one of which is that “You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, ‘Avant, black-browes’.”[3] The Spanish text at this point reads: Dijo el sartén a la caldera, Quítate allá ojinegra (Said the pan to the pot, get out of there black-eyes).[4] It is identified as a proverb (refrán) in the text, functioning as a retort to the person who criticises another of the same defect that he plainly has. Among several variations, the one where the pan addresses the pot as culinegra (black-arse) makes clear that they are dirtied in common by contact with the cooking fire.[5]
This translation was also recorded in England soon afterwards as “The pot calls the pan burnt-arse” in John Clarke’s collection of proverbs, Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina (1639).
Wiki goes on to give the 1876 example, with the shiny kettle, as well.
From Don Quixote! TIL
I am now gonna start calling people burnt ass.
They will be confused. It will be glorious.