Word for the Wise - from the radio Broadcast

[Pah]

Topic: The pot calling the kettle black

As so often happens, one of our unverified assumptions landed us in hot water—or perhaps we should say, a fine kettle of fish. Figurative hot water names "a state or condition of distress, annoyance, or difficulty"; while a kettle of fish is "something to be considered or reckoned with."

We'll begin by acknowledging that tagging unverified with assumption is considered by some to be redundant, since an assumption is something taken for granted, not verified. But because we were trying to emphasize that we never thought to investigate the truth behind what we believed to be the origin of the phrase the pot calling the kettle black, we decided it was a useful redundancy. And yes, we did check that one out: the useful redundancy does have an established place in the way folks use our language.

Now to our assumption. We had long believed that the pot calling the kettle black, a metaphor for one person accusing another of faults of which he himself (or herself) is guilty, has its origin in an anthropomorphic interpretation of a black pot and a black kettle.

But when we looked more closely, we learned the allusion comes from a black iron pot and a polished copper kettle. The way the story goes, the black pot would see its own dark reflection in the sheen of the copper kettle and then charge the innocent, shiny kettle with having its own characteristic color.

 

[Pah]

Topic: And's and but's

Somewhere along the line, American schoolchildren eventually learn that the Declaration of Independence was not signed en masse on July 4, 1776. In fact, the largest single group of signers affixed their names four weeks later, on August 2, 1776.

We mention this by way of leading gently into the notion that sometimes what we learn we end up unlearning. Take the notion that one should never begin a sentence with either and or but. If this is news to you, you might have been absent that day when the lesson was drilled into the heads of your classmates. But don't despair; most usage experts agree it is a lesson well worth forgetting.

So why was it taught? We remember being told it was illogical for conjunctions—which join things together—to appear at the beginning of a sentence, which is considered a grammatically self-contained unit. But as more than one commentator has noted, there is no stronger word with which to begin a sentence than but; and young writers soon outgrow the tendency to use and to string together simple sentences or clauses. Using and and but to begin sentences posed no problem for Thomas Jefferson, who did exactly that in his draft of the American Declaration of Independence.