How did 黑鍋 "black wok" semantically shift to mean "blame for a crime"? https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/38716 spurred this question. 黑鍋 - Wiktionary


  
  (literally) black wok
  (figuratively) blame for a crime
  


How did "black wok" semantically shift to mean definition 2 above? In 2020, Chinese cooking require woks that are usually black, so I can't imagine how it appertains to 'blame for a crime'?



As a verb, 背 'carry on the back' or 'bear'. Source for picture below. 背黑鍋 - Wiktionary


  
  (idiomatic) to take the blame (for someone else); to be a scapegoat
The Cantonese equivalent of 背黑鍋 is 替人孭鑊
鑊 is a slang for 'incident' e.g. 大鑊 (big wok = big incident). 孭鑊 (to carry the wok) means 'to take the responsibility/ blame (for an incident or mistake)' . &quot;替人孭鑊&quot; = &quot;take blame for someone else&quot; = &quot;背黑鍋&quot; in  Mandarin