This saying, which personifies kitchenware in order to make a point about hypocrisy, means “to criticize someone for a fault you also possess.” Per WiseGeek, the phrase dates back to the early 1600s, when most pots and kettles were fashioned from cast iron, a material that acquires streaks of black smoke when heated over a flame. Today’s idiom: “the pot calling the kettle black.” Welcome to Lexicon Valley’s new feature, “Is That Kosher?” A fuller linguistic arsenal leads to richer, chewier, more diverse expression-but when is the usefulness of a piece of language outweighed by the pain it causes? In “Is That Kosher?” we’ll reflect on certain words or phrases that lie in the margins of acceptability.
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