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Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"...
Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"...
by shawnlin - 3/26/08 2:20 PMRegarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"...
DNick (sp?) - dude, I have been wondering what the heck that meant for like my entire life until...until Tom explained it so well I felt enlightended - ENLIGHTENDED, for (kinda) realz!!1! 
wow...I feel better about life in general now. anyone else got that feeling?
Best,
Shalin
Schrödinger's Cake?
by jedbroadbent - 3/26/08 3:32 PM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlinI loved the idea of quantum cake, the cake is both eaten and not eaten.
…or is the cake a lie?
yeah, I love the quantum cake idea...
by shawnlin - 3/26/08 4:25 PM In reply to: Schrödinger's Cake? by jedbroadbentso...would a quantum cake taste good in the past, present, or future? does it have a taste? Does it taste the taster?
hahahaha! 
Quantum Cake - awesome idea Tom!
Tastes like chicken.
by DyasJester - 3/27/08 2:56 AM In reply to: yeah, I love the quantum cake idea... by shawnlinOf course quantum cake would taste like chicken. The matrix told us everything that doesn't have a taste is in fact chicken. DUH!
it does not exist
by mementh - 3/28/08 9:16 PM In reply to: Schrödinger's Cake? by jedbroadbentGLADOS does not have one for you.. it is a lie
wait...
by shawnlin - 3/27/08 5:16 AM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlinIf "have" means "eat" in this case, then you could read it as "You can't *eat* your cake and eat it to"...right? wow...that just sounds odd...
--S
Jason had it right
by RadioNed - 3/27/08 8:57 AM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlinHere is an explanation (cut/pasted) from a Bill Safire feature from NY Times Magazine from June 1996 about the Unabomber's manifesto. Evidently we've had the proverb mixed up for sometime.
********
Correct usage of a much-abused proverb first recorded in the 16th century has become evidence. In paragraph 185 of his 35,000-word "manifesto," published under duress by The Washington Post and The New York Times, the Unabomber wrote, "As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society -- well, you can't eat your cake and have it too -- to gain one thing you have to sacrifice another." In a letter discovered in Kaczynski's mother's home -- a letter that inexplicably found its way into the media -- the same proverb appears in the same words, with the same lack of a comma before the "too."
In both instances, the having and the eating were in correct order. Many people err in saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too," because you can -- first you have it, and then you eat it. The impossible is the other way around; to "eat your cake and have it" is the absurdity that makes the point. Both the Unabomber's creed and the Kaczynski letter had it right, which is more than can be said for half the quoters of the proverb.
************
Craig
It's in the timing.
by Renegade Knight - 3/31/08 11:19 AM In reply to: Jason had it right by RadioNedSomeone spent to much time on that explanation.
I can have a cake, I can eat a cake. I can't do both. Someone could argue that I can "have some of my cake while I'm eating it", but that's way to much work for a simple expression.
The point isn't lost by reversing eating and having. However we do get a thesis topic for english majors.
Right or wrong...
by dcbCreative - 3/27/08 1:02 PM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlin...This whole, "You can't have your cake and eat it too" has been a pet peeve of mine for years, so much so I've adopted saying, "You can/can't BAKE your cake and eat it too" meaning simply and obviously that you can/can't enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Just my take on this horridly used and some might say abused idiom.
David
P.S. Long time listener, first time poster (Illustrating how much of a pet peeve this is), love the show.
Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"...
by wizkids32 - 3/27/08 2:34 PM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlinYes thanks to Tom for explaining it to me too because I have always was confused by that saying too.
The saying is wrong...
by Natronx - 3/28/08 12:20 AM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by wizkids32The saying is wrong...you can have your cake and eat it too, just buy 2 cakes!
I think there must have been some serious cake rationing back when this saying was first coined.
(Just being the devil's advocate)
Actual Origin
by Slikkster - 3/28/08 3:37 AM In reply to: The saying is wrong... by Natronxre: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hav2.htm (and elsewhere)
"it is first written down in John Heywood’s A Dialogue Conteynyng Prouerbes and Epigrammes of 1562: “Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?”. (No typos; that was the spelling at the time.)
John Keats quoted it as eat your cake and have it at the beginning of his poem On Fame in 1816; Franklin D Roosevelt borrowed it in that form for his State of the Union Address in 1940..."
So, originally, it was uttered in the logical order of first eat, then have. It managed to get turned around some time after that.
It's funny, though. I never interpreted it in the way it's been described, where people associate "have" with eating. I always associated "have", in this instance, with possessing. But, the other association makes sense where confusion is concerned.
Of course, the idiom simply means you can't "have" it both ways, loi.
Ah, I "could care less" :0)
by Vance14 - 3/31/08 11:21 AM In reply to: Regarding "You can't have your cake and eat it too"... by shawnlinget it? "could" care less . . . oh, never mind. :0)
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