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Look up have one's cake and eat it, too in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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. It is most often used negatively, meaning an individual owning a thing, and still attempting to benefit from or use it. It 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."
As an example, an individual who is engaged to marry someone but is still dating others romantically would be said to be having one's cake and eating it too.
History
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] 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.
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, possession of the cake is no longer possible, seeing that it is in your tummy.[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]
References
- ^ "cake". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989.
- ^ "Common Errors in English: Eat Cake". Washington State University. http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/eatcake.html. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
- ^ "Katharina Volk, The Poetics of Latin Didactic. Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius.". http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2003/2003-01-26.html. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
External links
- Post at "The Phrase Finder", quoting Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New and The Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings.
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