You can't have your cake and eat it too. I have always thought this phrase is so stupid. Why would you have cake if you're not going to eat it?
2006-12-30 17:47:00 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
The point of the saying is that , once you eat the cake, you no longer have it - it is gone. It's broader meaning is that in order to get one thing you want, you have to give up other things. Choices have to be made in life - you can't have it all.
2006-12-30 17:55:55 · answer #1 · answered by wild_turkey_willie 5 · 4⤊ 0⤋
From Wikipedia:
"To wish to have one's cake and eat it too (sometimes eat one's cake and have it too) is to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things. This is a popular English idiomatic proverb, or figure of speech.
The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?" alluding 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."
2006-12-30 17:58:38 · answer #2 · answered by wiscoteach 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
What the proverb really means is the things people want are often incompatible. It would make more sense and be easier to understand if it was phrased differently such as: “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.”
Gr
2006-12-30 18:20:47 · answer #3 · answered by Gregnir 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think the phrase takes reference from propaganda about Maire Antoinette...saying "let them eat cake" when all the people were starving in France....(which by the way, she didn't say..)
That is just my guess...and I agree it is a stupid saying.....
2006-12-30 18:01:46 · answer #4 · answered by LeftField360 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋
More confusing to me.
EAsy as pie, but a piece of cake?
2006-12-30 17:56:36 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
I agree - It just means you can't be greedy and have it your way, they should just say that instead of the silly saying.
2006-12-30 17:56:38 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
i dont no hey what came first the chicken or the egg?
2006-12-30 20:15:25 · answer #7 · answered by KimberlyAnne. 1 · 1⤊ 2⤋