To have one's cake and eat it too is a popular English idiomatic proverb or figure of speech, sometimes stated as eat one's cake and have it too or simply have one's cake and eat it. This is most often used negatively, to connote the idea of consuming a thing whilst managing to preserve it. This may also indicate having or wanting more than one can handle or deserve, or trying to have two incompatible things. The proverb's meaning is similar to the phrases, "you can't have it both ways" and "you can't have the best of both worlds." Conversely, in the positive sense, it would refer to "having it both ways" or "having the best of both worlds."
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The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?" (John Heywood's "A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue").[1] This phrase alludes to the impossibility of eating your cake and still having it afterwards. The modern version (where the clauses are reversed) is a corruption which was first signaled in 1812. Further misconception has been perpetuated in main-stream media by Douglas Pace during his argument that it is in fact the order of the eating and having which matters, similar to the chicken and the egg conundrum.
Modern Usage
"You want to save it and destroy it at the same time"
Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University, points out that perhaps a more logical or easier to understand version of this saying is, "You can’t eat your cake and have it too." Professor Brians writes that a common source of confusion about this idiom stems from the verb to have which in this case indicates that once eaten, keeping possession of the cake is no longer possible, seeing that it is in your stomach (and no longer exists as a cake).[2] Alternatively, the two verbs can be understood to represent a sequence of actions, so one can indeed "have" one's cake and then "eat" it. Consequently, the literal meaning of the reversed idiom doesn't match the metaphorical meaning. The phrase can also have specialized meaning in academic contexts; Classicist Katharina Volk of Columbia University has used the phrase to describe the development of poetic imagery in Latin didactic poetry, naming the principle behind the imagery's adoption and application the "have-one's-cake-and-eat-it-too principle".[3]
A French equivalent expression is: vouloir le beurre et l'argent du beurre, meaning literally to want the butter and the money for the butter. The idiom can be emphasized by adding et le sourire de la crémière ("and the smile of the female buttermaker").
The expression avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca ("to have the barrel full and the wife drunk") is used in Italy with an equivalent meaning.
In Spanish, querer estar en misa y en procesión ("wishing to be both at Mass and in the procession") and nadar y guardar la ropa ("swimming and keeping an eye on the removed clothes") are similar in meaning.
There is a Serbian equivalent as well, Не можеш да имаш и јаре и паре ("You can't have both goatling and money").
Similarly, in Chinese, "又要马儿跑，又要马儿不吃草" (pinyin: Yòu yào mǎ'er pǎo, yòu yào mǎ'er bu chī cǎo.) meaning "To want a horse that both runs fast and consumes no feed."
There is a Greek equivalent as well: "Και την πίτα ολόκληρη και τον σκύλο χορτάτο" ("you want the pie whole and the dog full").
A similar expression in Swiss German is Du chasch nit dr Füfer und s Weggli ha ("you can't have the five cent coin and a -certain type of swiss- bread roll").
A Nepalese equivalent also exists that goes dubai haat ma laddu, which means having laddu (a sweet candy) in both your hands.
In Argentina, the expression la chancha y los veinte literally means "the pig and the twenties". It comes from the old piggybanks for children that used to contain coins of 20 cents. The only way to get the coins was to break the piggyback open -- hence the phrase. This can be emphasized by adding y la máquina de hacer chorizos, which translates to "and the machine to make sausage".
In Bulgaria, it is quite common for the expression "И вълкът сит, и агнето цяло" ("The wolf is full, and the lamb - whole.") to be used.
In German, an equivalent proverb goes: wasch' mir den Pelz, aber mach mich nicht naß! - "please wash my fur (or hair), but don't get me wet!"