Talk:Have one's cake and eat it too

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[edit] Cleanup

This page is imprecise and cumbersome and should either be ammended or deleted.--Tappyea 23:10, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

  • Agreed. It's an imprecise and cumbersome phrase to begin with... lots of people use it without knowing exactly what it means or why. Also, removed last addition by Dysprosia -- no offense; just no particular reason to add that example over many others in common use. (I must say the POV bit at the end is what made me think to remove it; if you really want it in the article, maybe shorten that par. to 1 NPOV sentence.) +sj+ 08:09, 2004 Mar 8 (UTC)
I don't know how many people exactly still believe that bisexuals are really just "gay-and-denying-it" or "het-and-denying it", but I think that many nowadays do not hold such ideas. Leave the paragraph in or no, I just remember hearing the phrase used in connections with criticisms of bisexuality and thought it pertinent to comment Dysprosia 08:13, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Fair enough. If there's a concise way to say this, without taking up as much space as the entire rest of the article, it would certainly be pertinent to include; I have heard the same usage more than once. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sj (talk • contribs) 13:57, 9 March 2004
I'll have another stab at it a little later :) Dysprosia 04:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Easier to understand if reversed

The phrase is easier to understand if it is reversed: to eat your cake, and have it too. One cannot possess the piece of cake if one has already eaten it. Patronizing and probably inaccurate. Having something can quite simply mean eating something, as in "I had eggs for breakfast". The latter phrase does not mean that the speaker was in possession of the eggs for the duration of the breakfast, though that is of course implied, but that the eggs were part of the meal. (This is speculation, but I wager that this use derives from the imperative "have some" used as polite request, with the implication that anything so "had" is consumed: "here, have some eggs"). Thus, "to have your cake and eat it too" could simply be a stacking of synonyms, and of course one cannot eat the cake after already having had it in this sense. JRM 01:05, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

The explanation derided above is the only way the phrase makes sense to me. It means that one cannot have both the pleasure of possessing something and the pleasure of consuming it simultaneously. --Clement Cherlin 09:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree. The above explanation (about reversing the phrase) makes sense to me, whereas the one currently present on the page seems really iffy. I certainly understand what the writer is saying, but it still doesn't seem like the way a phrase would actually originate. Sources? TomTheHand 21:07, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I thought it was a wonderful fake etymology and I was quite proud of my original research. But, to coin another colorful phrase, I have to eat crow. From [1]:

YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO - "Once you've eaten your cake, this familiar proverb reminds us, you cannot cry as a child would about not having your cake anymore. The saying in its earliest form read, 'Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?' which appeared in John Heywood's 'A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue' (1546).?" "You can't eat your cake and have your cake" appeared in John Ray's 'A collection of English Proverbs' (1670). The modern version, 'We cannot have our cake and eat it too,' was recorded in a document (1812) relating to the war of 1812. From "Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993). "You can't have your cake and eat it too -- One can't use something up and still have it to enjoy. This proverb was recorded in the book of proverbs by John Heywood in 1546, and is first attested in the United States in the 1742 'Colonial Records of Georgia' in 'Original Papers, 1735-1752.' The adage is found in varying forms: You can't eat your cake and have it too. You can't have everything and eat it too; Eat your cake and have the crumbs in bed with you, etc. ..." From the "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman.

My clever explanations notwithstanding, the thing simply ended up reversed, which is common enough. It's plausible enough to defend that the synonymous meaning of "having" is what influenced/allowed this, but that's of no relevance to the actual etymology. Originally, the phrase was "eat your cake and have it too": to want to still have the cake in hand after eating it.
I've changed the article to reflect this and I've included the site mentioned above as a source, though some more nicer ones would be preferred—in particular, if we can actually verify this quote with the original dictionaries (or something equally suitable) we could mention that directly. Thanks for your input. JRM 21:59, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

[edit] Your cake is gone once you eat it

Better modern translation. Rugz (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] have one's cake and eat it too

It does not matter which way you say it. Have your cake and eat it too has the same meaning as eat your cake and have it too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Footdr (talk • contribs) 08:09, 9 April 2006

I was thinking the same thing the entire time I was reading the article. Either way you order it, the phrase is about wanting to have two states simultaneously which are mutually exclusive. The states are (eating your cake) and (having your cake around). Neither form is more "correct" than the other, except in terms of reflecting the ordering of the original phrase. And the original form does nothing to rid itself of George Carlin's "critique" because both phrases mean exactly the same thing. Onlynone 20:22, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
See previous discussion concerning etymology. "To have" and "to eat" were not always synonymous, just as "to have," "to bed," "to screw," "to lay," "to bone," "to know," "to know in a biblical sense," etc. were not always synonymous. --The Centipede 23:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
The first two posted viewpoints do not depend on anything being synonymous. If I want to have my cake (meaning, possess it) then if I eat it, I can no longer possess the cake. So the saying makes sense as "have your cake and eat it too." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Squashfactory (talk • contribs) 21:19, 31 August 2007
Exactly, I don't know why people keep talking about the fact that 'to have' can also mean 'to eat'. That has nothing to do with this discussion. Neither form of this expression ("to have your cake and eat it too" and "to eat your cake and have it too") use 'to have' as meaning 'to eat'. Neither form even implies this meaning, and frankly I had never noticed it before reading it in this discussion here. Onlynone 18:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Common English usage treats the "and" as catering for a sequence of actions. So if Johnny does A and B, it is understood that A was done before B. Remember this phrase is handed down from a culture of usage, not one of technical analysis. So if today we say that Johnny could have done B before A, well, 400 years ago, wherefrom the phrase comes, it was not so. The order does matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.8.13.68 (talk) 23:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I admit to this analysis, in that "I did A and B" usually means "I did A and then I did B" (usually, but not always). Looking at the phrase "You can't have your cake and eat it too" through this lens does make it seem incorrect. I can have my cake, "Here's my cake sitting on the table"; and then I can eat it "I'm eating the cake that I just had lying around". In this way I had my cake and ate it too. However, this chronological interpretation of "and" isn't universal, and based on the context I believe that most people recognize when you mean for both A and B to happen at the same time (as in this case) as opposed to one after the other. Onlynone 18:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
The use of the word "too" at the end makes the statement correct. "Too" also avoids the implied ordering of events that some have mentioned in regards to "and". The article should be corrected and have the references removed that the statement isn't correct. Theosis4u (talk) 07:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)