Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

Te asustas de la mortaja y te abrazas al muerto

English translation:

The pot calling the kettle black

Added to glossary by mirta
Jul 11, 2019 19:20
4 yrs ago
2 viewers *
Spanish term

Te asustas de la mortaja y te abrazas al muerto

Spanish to English Art/Literary Idioms / Maxims / Sayings
¿Alguien me podría ayudar a traducir este dicho mexicano? Muchas gracias.

Proposed translations

+3
50 mins
Selected

The pot calling the kettle black

This is perhaps the most idiomatic phrase in English for the kind of hypocrisy that involves criticising others and failing to acknowledge one's own faults. It's not immediately obvious (to me at least) that the Mexican expression means this; I'm basing it on the explanation in this book:

"Te asustas de la mortaja y te abrazas al muerto
Censura a quien hace aspavientos ante las faltas de los demás; y en cambio se desentiende de sus propias culpas, que son muy grandes"
Jorge Mejía Prieto, Albures y refranes de México, p. 146
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4gtEqeaZkiUC&pg=PA146&lp...

"the pot calling the kettle black
​something you say that means people should not criticize someone else for a fault that they have themselves"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pot-call...

A biblical version would be:

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Matthew 7:5

You can adapt this English saying; for example, you could say "you're (like) the pot calling the kettle black".
Peer comment(s):

agree patinba : "el muerto se asusta del degollado (y no ve que los dos son finados)" in the River Plate region
59 mins
Thanks, Pat :-) I love this kind of question; you learn all kind of new expressions.
agree AllegroTrans
3 hrs
Thanks, Chris :-)
agree Andrea Sacchi
1 day 55 mins
Thanks, Andrea :-)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you!"
+1
2 hrs

It is the shroud you pretend to fear - then embrace the corpse with a crocodile tear

Perhaps a nominal alternative of hypocritical imagery connected with the Mexican concern with morbid rituals.

Example sentence:

Así como muchos otros, tales como: te asustas de la mortaja y te abrazas al difunto.

Peer comment(s):

agree AllegroTrans : Bravo! Superlative suggestion but your link is to a bakery! Incidentally, I have a recipe for this particular bread..
1 hr
Indeed! The bakery website in which the saying is - appositely - 'buried' is about non-English 'funeral teas', rather funerary do(ugh)nuts and bread. Congrats on the (hopefully copyrighted) recipe.
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