Talk:Have one's cake and eat it too

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• 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.

I'll have another stab at it a little later :) Dysprosia 04:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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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] 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.