How did 黑鍋 "black wok" semantically shift to mean "blame for a crime"?
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