Redundant Figures of Speech #1
I was considering this one the other day, prompted by a) remembering something from the film 13 Going on 30 and b) wandering through the homewares section in Asda.
… the pot calling the kettle black …
When was the last time anyone saw a black pot or kettle?
Pots - in the sense of saucepans - tend to be shiny stainless steel or else a variety of colours; pot can refer to all different sorts of container anyway, such as a terracotta flower pot or a flower-patterned china chamber pot. And of course, there’s the non-container meaning…
[As an aside, when I was a child and before I understand the meaning behind this turn of phrase, I thought it had something to do with snooker, because of the TV programme Pot Black...]
And kettles are usually electric these days, and again, come in a variety of colours. White, often, but dark green and butter yellow have been popular lately.
So. It’s a figure of speech that will puzzle children now and in the future even more than it puzzled me twenty years ago…
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