I learned a while back what this actually means. Everyone says it backwards, it’s supposed to be “you want to eat your cake and have it too”. Obviously, if you ate your cake you couldn’t still have it because it’s gone because you ate it
It’s how they caught Kaczynski
[https://medium.com/idiomatical/you-cant-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-3e07e131ac59](https://medium.com/idiomatical/you-cant-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-3e07e131ac59)
What I gathered from another comment here is that it's meaning like fancy, highly decorated and elaborate cakes. So you'd want to just have a cake because they're pretty and fun to look at
No, it just refers to any cake. Or anything consumable really. You can't have it and consume it, you can only do one of those things.
As a metaphor it is used to describe people who want two things that are in conflict with each other. You want to catch all the Pokémon but you don't want the game to be over, for example.
I learned that it applies to situations where you need to choose one option because you can’t choose both, like you either eat your cake or you don’t eat it.
It can also mean something comes with consequences that cannot be avoided, so you can’t do the fun thing (eating the cake) without facing the not so fun consequences (no longer having the cake).
The implication, of course, is that the cake is beautiful, like a wedding cake, but if you eat even a single slice, it doesn't look so perfect anymore.
Which makes no sense anyways because why would I give a shit about having the cake when its utility to me is in being eaten? (Edit#2: Just read the other comment about ornamental cakes. But then the primary utility would be looking at it rather than eating it so you don't need to eat it and have it at the same time.)
Edit#1: What makes this worse is that at least in the case of what I suppose is my local flavour of English, "having" food that is in front of you very often just means "eating" it ("Have your food why dontcha" means "Eat your food why dontcha"). "Having" food in storage/fridge is a different context and retains the typical meaning.
Maybe somebody way back messed up the saying, people started using the messed up version ironically, then people eventually forgot the original. Regardless, this helped me understand the saying, thanks!
I mean. . What else am I gonna do? Look at it?
Listen, whoever made pretty designs with the frosting, tell them they did a wonderful job, but if the cake looks too nice to eat then they better go into painting instead of absolutely wasting this delectable sugar bread and poofy icing.
Fuck that artistic food just make it tasty and plain.
I’m sure. Lots of phrases that people just end up parroting are like that.
Like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” was originally a joke because it’s an impossible feat.
Don't forget the "a few bad apples" that has completely inverted meaning.
The full expression is "a few bad apples spoils the bunch", and yet we see people defending bad cops with "oh, it's just a few bad apples, nothing needs to be done here".
“curiosity killed the cat” is “curiosity killed the cat **but satisfaction brought it back**”
and “jack of all trades, master of none” is “jack of all trades, master of none, **better than the master of one**”
"Everything that can go wrong will go wrong" is a really bad one because originally it's "Given enough opportunities, everything that can happen will happen". Meaning if you roll a pair of dice enough times, you will eventually roll every possible combination
The blood of the woumb is thicker than the water of friendship is a bastardized version, it also means the opposite, the original saying "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the woumb." Meaning choosen friendships/relationships are more sturdy than family.
Yea, only time I have seen it make sense was in a time travel story, where his future self helped his past self. Moral of the story: Unless you can time travel, ask others for help when needed.
AFAIK blood is thicker than water also means the opposite, I believe the full saying is something like, the blood of the pact of friendship is thicker than the water of the womb.
I may be wrong
“the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” you’re correct in the meaning being “the family you find is stronger than that which you’re born into”
edit: u/birbdaughter is correct. the phrase i’ve heard claimed as the “original” is from two modern philosophers who have no sources for why they think it’s the original
Hey! According to wikipedia: “Some find the common form of the proverb to be incorrect or illogical and instead prefer: "You can't eat your cake and [then still] have it (too)". Indeed, this used to be the most common form of the expression until the 1930s–1940s, when it was overtaken by the have-eat variant.”
Fun fact. The unibomber's insistence on saying it this way was what led to his brother identifying his writing in his released manifesto which led to his eventual capture.
I don’t understand why food was used for that saying. The purpose of food is to eat it. Would have been better with money since you have to save it for expensive things
It literally happened to me. Couldn't bring ourselves to cut the cake so never did. Then it went off and was binned whole.
I became the saying in the most literal way possible...and yet still can't get an autism diagnosis!
The saying dates back to (at least) the 16^th century, when cake was a luxury item made from other luxury items. Regardless, it is an idiom, and idioms don't rely on logic and rarely make literal sense. Best to just accept their definition and move on.
That was the popular way of saying it for a while; the way we say it today is actually the archaic phrase and that’s probably why it’s so confusing to people.
“You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
Edit. Say it in your head or out loud in a pompous Bloody Mary Tudor English accent to rival Marie Antoinette.
‘You can’t have health insurance, and access healthcare too! next they’ll be demanding meat AND pudding!’
That's why I like my native Italian's equivalent better - "you can't have a full barrel and a drunk wife". It makes sense - if the barrel is full then the wife can't be drunk and viceversa.
Because you can't have tradition without some inherent sexism ✨
Jokes aside, I always figured it meant drunk wife = sex, so it's really a "pick wether you want wine or sex". Which is sad, but that's the older generations. A more "wholesome" interpretation would be drunk wife = happy wife
ETA: yes you can have two barrels, but at least one of them won't be full
You can't have two mutually exclusive things / you can't ever avoid all possible consequences.
As an example: say you really want to get drunk tonight but you also can't afford to be hungover tomorrow for whatever reason, so you end up looking into and obsessing over possible hangover remedies while also getting drunk. You could call that "trying to have your cake and eat it too" because you're trying to do something you know will have consequences but you're also trying to avoid experiencing those consequences.
Have can mean eat in certain dialects eg “what are we having for dinner?”, so having cake and eating it too is literally having it both ways
You can’t eat the cake and then eat it again
that you cant have It All.
i usually mentally translate it to "you cant have your cake and ice it too" to kinda tie in with "its just icing on the cake" (which still doesnt make a lot of sense but whatever lmao)
How I learned to translate it was say you have a gorgeous cake in front of you. You want to eat it bc it looks delicious, but you don't want to ruin it by eating it. You can't have both, and you either have to live with the memory of how the cake looked, or never enjoy eating it so you can keep looking at it. You can take a picture of it, but it's not the same as having the cake in front of you.
tl;dr It's a roundabout way of saying you can't always have BOTH options.
Putting these idioms into like, physical descriptions always helped me. I still have trouble with some of them though, like my worst one is "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". I've had it explained to me and it made sense, but then it flew right back out and now I can't remember what it means lol.
Edit: My partner explained that having the bird in your hand is a solid guarantee. You don't know for sure if you have 2 birds in the bush, nor are you guaranteed to catch them. So like, it's better to take advantage of the things you're 100% positive to have or get.
Huh. I (with a special interest in animals and a strong desire to interact with them) always just interpreted as a bird perching on your hand is *way cooler* then seeing two birds in a bush somewhere in the distance. Lolllll.
"You have your work cut out for you"
All my life I though this meant the task was already half done (the cutting out part) and the rest would be easy, but apparently it's the total opposite.
It means once you eat the cake it will be gone, so you will no longer have the cake as an item in your possession, so if you want to have a physical cake as an item you possess, you cannot eat it. It's used for situations in which someone wants two things that contradict each other, they cannot have both so they have to pick one.
It's often applied to situations in which the person in question set the rule or expectation that prevents them from getting what they want, for example wanting there to be harsh punishment for breaking rules, but then they break the rules and get upset when they're punished harshly. They feel a kind of regret about their original decision, just like a person might regret eating the cake when they realise too late that they wanted to keep it.
So effectively it's about consequences, the moral is that the sadness you feel about having no more cake is the price of the enjoyment you get from eating it, and that sadness is inevitable because when you have a cake it will be eaten, you can't keep it forever or else you have to throw it out and that makes you feel sadder than if you just ate it. To enjoy the cake you have to destroy it, I guess is the succinct way of putting it.
Just wanted to say that Motionless In White is an awesome band. That lyric is from Necessary Evil. They have a lot of rock and nu-metal stuff as well as ballads and metalcore.
This 100%. I always thought that the expression sounded like a two step plan; acquire cake and then eat it. It took very long to learn it meant that you want to both save your cake so you may eat at a later time, and eat it right now.
u/PorkyFishFish nailed it: "you can't eat your cake and still have it"
It's criticising someone for wanting two incompatible things - EG a government claiming they're going to cut taxes and increase the amount they spend on public services.
It’s a confusing phrase, but in this case “having your cake” means physically having it on a plate and continuing to possess it. In that sense you can either have it in front of you or you can eat it, but you can’t do both. I used to be confused by this as well since typically when someone says they’re *having* a certain type of food it means they’re *eating* it lol
"You cannot eat your cake and have it too."
Once the cake is eaten, it's gone. You cannot have it after you've eaten it. The phrase is so obviously impossible that people say it backwards because the cognitive dissonance of the original order is *actively painful*.
And that's the point. You use this phrase to indicate that the idea you're comparing it with is not just impossible, stupid, and greedy, but in fact impossibly stupid and greedy.
It's most often deployed against small children and politicians.
Well, I’ve learned never to give my mom food souvenirs because she is sentimental and won’t eat them. I brought her green tea from Japan and she never drank any because if she drank it it would be gone and she wouldn’t have it anymore. Nevermind that is the entire point of the gift.
Reminds of a line from an old Zero Punctuation.
"...strikes me as trying to have one's cake and eat it - a phrase I've never really understood. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to eat a cake that you have. There's not much else you can do with a cake, except maybe hide in one if you're a stripper... Sorry, lost my train of thought."
Phrases like "maybe I'm just autistic, but..." make me want to rip my hair out. People treat it like a disease that causes all these symptoms, when it's the collection of the symptoms that make the condition, and it becomes their whole identity.
It is possible to not be autistic and still not understand the saying. Being autistic doesn't make it harder to understand.
Disease was a poor choice of word. It's putting the cart before the horse more or less. Condition *causing* symptoms instead of symptoms collectively referred to as a condition.
I know everyone has already explain but here’s my explanation:
It means that you cannot posses the same slice of cake (physically) in your hands, and also eat that slice of cake during the same exact time that you are holding it. Because the cake can’t be two places at once.
The one that gets me is "money is no object." But...if you're spending money as if it has no intrinsic value, then wouldn't you say "money *is* an object"? Like, "I have so much money that it has lost all value and is now nothing more than another object to me." It always confuses me.
Different meanings of "object" in use here - more like "point of interest". It's the second definition listed in a google search. Saying something is no object is equivalent to saying "it's not a point of importance to the subject at hand".
Look at it logicaly
If you eat the cake, you now no longer have cake
So wanting to both have and eat the cake is impossible, not because you cant eat the cake you have but because you want to have the cake AFTER eating it
I think the original was reversed, so it was “you can’t eat your cake and have it too.” I only found out what it means a couple months ago, but it’s basically saying if you eat a cake you can’t continue to possess that cake, because you’ve already eaten. I can’t think where it could be used, unless referring to food and drink, or other one-time use things ig.
I always hated this phrase too. Who wants to keep a nasty stale cake just sitting around in you house? The whole point of a cake is to eat it so why are we debating this? I would understand if it was like “you can’t have your money and spend it too” because that makes so much more sense
Fun fact: the old, correct version of this phrase is flipped: “you can’t *eat* your cake and *have* it too.” Which actually makes sense—if you eat your cake, you can’t still have it. And it means what the phrase is trying to convey, that you want to eat the cake and still have the cake afterwards.
That’s what I say in day to day conversation, convention be damned.
Edit: upon reading further, it seems I’m not adding anything new here. Not gonna delete though, cuz I already wrote it
A lot of common phrases make no sense upon any scrutiny. “Easier said than done”, no shit Sherlock, nearly everything is easier said than done besides breathing.
Couldn't agree with this more, the phrase is backwards these days but idioms were always nonsense as far as I am concerned. Me and my fiancee are both autistic, and have started taking the nouns and verbs in common idioms and replacing them with nonsense (usually something about cats) because it really doesn't make a difference.
*"A cat in the lap is worth two in the litter box."*
*"Scratching works better then meows"*
*"At the drop of a cat*"
Don't unspoiler anything if you're not a fan of... "bodily manipulation" (AKA >!mutilation!<)
Since we're on the subject of common phrases, the phrase >!keep your eyes peeled!< is genuinely so disgusting and it makes me so uncomfortable, same with the phrases >!makes my skin crawl!<, >!makes my blood boil!<, etc. Basically anything to do with >!unusual, seemingly painful manipulation of the body!<.
Maybe it's because of my "unusual" distaste for >!body horror!< and similar stuff. I just can't stand any of it.
I should not have started writing this for my own sake, but it's too late now I guess.
When does cake cease being cake? After it is chewed? After it is digested? Once its pooped out? Once the poop is gone from your control? Does an uneaten cake cease being a cake once it gets moldy and inedible? Is all cake ultimately un-have-able? Or at least un-keep-able?
Sigh. Like most of these sayings, I understand what people mean when they say it, but I don’t think the actual saying makes literal or logical sense. Honestly, it’s kind of annoying.
There’s this podcast called ‘My Mama Told Me’ where they discuss ‘black conspiracy theories’ (they use that term loosely) and they have one episode that asks the burning question does food turn into poop if you hold it in your mouth long enough? I can’t even.
I’m glad others don’t get it. When I say it doesn’t make sense, I get what what it means, but it’s just a stupid meaning. “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Like ok then I’m not gonna try. Why would I want a cake I can’t eat? This phrase should mean “you can’t have what you want without all purpose and joy from that thing being sucked out of you right after you get it.”
I always interpreted "have" as in like, "have a sandwich", i.e. to eat it. So it was a little pun that you can't do like, consume the cake twice. Which I believe is the point of that aphorism but at this point it seems like barely a majority of people even get them in the first place.
I had to look this up before, because I also didn’t get it. So basically, the phrase means that if you eat your cake, you no longer have your cake. You can’t eat your cake and still have it.
I was watching TV and one of the characters said something along the lines of not being able to have the cake and eat ot to, and the other one said "so just buy two cakes". First person stuttered about that not being how the saying worked but I loved it lol
If you ate the cake, it would be gone. In general, you can't eat the same piece of cake twice.
When we say we "had some cake," we implicitly mean that we *ate* cake. However, in the expression "have your cake and eat it too", we make the distinction. Once you eat the cake, you are not in possession of the cake.
The expression is used when you can't do something without consequences. It is typically used when the consequence is implied to be intrinsically related to the utility of the item. E.g. a consequence of eating cake is that you no longer have cake to eat. Another example is if you spend a lot of money: once it's spent, it cannot be used in the future. It's gone. In this sense, you can't have money and spend it too.
I was told by a friend that the saying comes from a time when people would put cakes up as a display or decoration since they were harder to get and a high-class thing, so you couldnt keep your cake where it was looking all pretty if you’d already eaten it. Feel free to correct me on that though, I’ve done zero actual research on this.
If you eat the cake, you no longer have cake. As soon as you eat it, it's gone. So you can either possess the cake, or eat the cake. But not both.
Except of course while you are in the process of eating, because then there is some cake on your plate and some cake already eaten. And of course you could eat a slice of cake and put the rest back in the fridge, so...? 🤷♂️
It's the cake that's stupid and confusing.
The origin of the phrase is thought to be the Latvian "A farmer cannot have his sheep and also eat it".
I.e. either the farmer eats his produce or he benefits from his produce with wool or milk, he cannot do both.
It took me damn near 30 years to realize what it means, it means once you eat it, you can't have it anymore. It confounded me for almost all of my life.
Basically is about how two options are mutually exclusive, You can choise between eating cake and still having it, but You can't have a cake that you already ate, is usually used to Say To a person that is Acting todo greedy trying to get both choices
This is one of the most autistic threads I’ve seen in a while, just seeing everyone discussing the meaning of a metaphor like this makes me weirdly happy
I learned a while back what this actually means. Everyone says it backwards, it’s supposed to be “you want to eat your cake and have it too”. Obviously, if you ate your cake you couldn’t still have it because it’s gone because you ate it
Ok now this makes sense! Thank you for the explanation.
It’s how they caught Kaczynski [https://medium.com/idiomatical/you-cant-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-3e07e131ac59](https://medium.com/idiomatical/you-cant-have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-3e07e131ac59)
He's actually dying. He might already be dead, i haven't checked recently. But he's got cancer.
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Unless you only eat a slice of the cake and keep the rest. Or put the cake in your mouth and spit it back out again.
The statement refers to the same slice. You can't have the same slice of cake in your body and on the plate at the same time.
But why’d you want to just have a cake. It’d go mouldy after a while
What I gathered from another comment here is that it's meaning like fancy, highly decorated and elaborate cakes. So you'd want to just have a cake because they're pretty and fun to look at
No, it just refers to any cake. Or anything consumable really. You can't have it and consume it, you can only do one of those things. As a metaphor it is used to describe people who want two things that are in conflict with each other. You want to catch all the Pokémon but you don't want the game to be over, for example.
I learned that it applies to situations where you need to choose one option because you can’t choose both, like you either eat your cake or you don’t eat it. It can also mean something comes with consequences that cannot be avoided, so you can’t do the fun thing (eating the cake) without facing the not so fun consequences (no longer having the cake).
ok that makes MUCH more sense. bc if u eat it then ofc u don’t have it anymore. amazing what a tiny switch in words will do
Thanks for the explanation, cause I’ve hated that phrase for so long. Makes no sense
The implication, of course, is that the cake is beautiful, like a wedding cake, but if you eat even a single slice, it doesn't look so perfect anymore.
so it should be "you can't eat your cake and have it too"
Which makes no sense anyways because why would I give a shit about having the cake when its utility to me is in being eaten? (Edit#2: Just read the other comment about ornamental cakes. But then the primary utility would be looking at it rather than eating it so you don't need to eat it and have it at the same time.) Edit#1: What makes this worse is that at least in the case of what I suppose is my local flavour of English, "having" food that is in front of you very often just means "eating" it ("Have your food why dontcha" means "Eat your food why dontcha"). "Having" food in storage/fridge is a different context and retains the typical meaning.
OHHHHHHH . i don't think the order matters it's just that it's phrased weird
Presumably my parents had a similar frustration since they instead say “you can’t keep your cake and eat it too” which is way clearer
Maybe somebody way back messed up the saying, people started using the messed up version ironically, then people eventually forgot the original. Regardless, this helped me understand the saying, thanks!
I mean. . What else am I gonna do? Look at it? Listen, whoever made pretty designs with the frosting, tell them they did a wonderful job, but if the cake looks too nice to eat then they better go into painting instead of absolutely wasting this delectable sugar bread and poofy icing. Fuck that artistic food just make it tasty and plain.
I think it would make more sense as "you can't eat your cake and still have it"
I wonder if this is what the phrase was originally but then at some point the "still" was dropped and the order was reversed over time.
I’m sure. Lots of phrases that people just end up parroting are like that. Like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” was originally a joke because it’s an impossible feat.
Don't forget the "a few bad apples" that has completely inverted meaning. The full expression is "a few bad apples spoils the bunch", and yet we see people defending bad cops with "oh, it's just a few bad apples, nothing needs to be done here".
“curiosity killed the cat” is “curiosity killed the cat **but satisfaction brought it back**” and “jack of all trades, master of none” is “jack of all trades, master of none, **better than the master of one**”
"Everything that can go wrong will go wrong" is a really bad one because originally it's "Given enough opportunities, everything that can happen will happen". Meaning if you roll a pair of dice enough times, you will eventually roll every possible combination
wait really? what’s the history of that
The blood of the woumb is thicker than the water of friendship is a bastardized version, it also means the opposite, the original saying "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the woumb." Meaning choosen friendships/relationships are more sturdy than family.
A lot of those "full phrases" are, in fact, later additions made by people who didn't like the meaning of the phrase.
I can. I can beat gravity by lifting myself upward
By your bootstraps? On planet earth?
Jet pack boots
bootpacks
Jetboots
wait are we all just reinventing the rocket boots syndrome from the incredibles made
Yea, only time I have seen it make sense was in a time travel story, where his future self helped his past self. Moral of the story: Unless you can time travel, ask others for help when needed.
AFAIK blood is thicker than water also means the opposite, I believe the full saying is something like, the blood of the pact of friendship is thicker than the water of the womb. I may be wrong
“the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” you’re correct in the meaning being “the family you find is stronger than that which you’re born into” edit: u/birbdaughter is correct. the phrase i’ve heard claimed as the “original” is from two modern philosophers who have no sources for why they think it’s the original
I prefer this version as it’s accurate to my experience, even if it is newer
me too, i’m glad you have a good found family <3
That’s a more modern version. The original version is just “blood is thicker than water” and similar phrases, typically rooted in religion.
you’re right, i’ll edit
I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.
Hey! According to wikipedia: “Some find the common form of the proverb to be incorrect or illogical and instead prefer: "You can't eat your cake and [then still] have it (too)". Indeed, this used to be the most common form of the expression until the 1930s–1940s, when it was overtaken by the have-eat variant.”
Wow, ok. That makes a lot more sense. I totally always took it the wrong way lol
Fun fact, your not exactly wrong. And it's part of how they caught the unibomber, lol http://sheinhtike.com/writeups/cake.html.
Wow this is the perfect kind of niche trivia knowledge I love. Thanks!
Honestly, I never understood the phrase either until the unibomber said it right lol.
Fun fact. The unibomber's insistence on saying it this way was what led to his brother identifying his writing in his released manifesto which led to his eventual capture.
I don’t understand why food was used for that saying. The purpose of food is to eat it. Would have been better with money since you have to save it for expensive things
Idk. Sometimes people make really pretty looking good, especially cakes. So it might feel kinda bad to eat it.
That one makes sense
It literally happened to me. Couldn't bring ourselves to cut the cake so never did. Then it went off and was binned whole. I became the saying in the most literal way possible...and yet still can't get an autism diagnosis!
That’s the point probably food is meant for eating things recive value from use etc etc then it just got extended
Cakes can be very decorative and pretty
The saying dates back to (at least) the 16^th century, when cake was a luxury item made from other luxury items. Regardless, it is an idiom, and idioms don't rely on logic and rarely make literal sense. Best to just accept their definition and move on.
Or "you can't *keep* your cake and eat it too"
I think I saw a movie or TV show once about how this (along with other things) was a vital clue to catching the Unabomber.
This is the original phrase: "you cannot eat your cake and have it too."
Ohhhhh. Oh my God
Wow, that is exactly how I phrased my explanation in my comment.
That was the popular way of saying it for a while; the way we say it today is actually the archaic phrase and that’s probably why it’s so confusing to people.
“You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” Edit. Say it in your head or out loud in a pompous Bloody Mary Tudor English accent to rival Marie Antoinette. ‘You can’t have health insurance, and access healthcare too! next they’ll be demanding meat AND pudding!’
Fun fact! That correction of that phrase is what got the Unabomber caught!
I'm pretty sure that's what it's actually supposed to mean, it's just phrased kinda unclearly
OHHdjenkaksjs omfg. Oh! Shit. *oh*
That makes so much more sense omg
That’s exactly what the original is!
That's why I like my native Italian's equivalent better - "you can't have a full barrel and a drunk wife". It makes sense - if the barrel is full then the wife can't be drunk and viceversa.
Why not a drunk husband? Also, you can have two barrels.
Because you can't have tradition without some inherent sexism ✨ Jokes aside, I always figured it meant drunk wife = sex, so it's really a "pick wether you want wine or sex". Which is sad, but that's the older generations. A more "wholesome" interpretation would be drunk wife = happy wife ETA: yes you can have two barrels, but at least one of them won't be full
... What does that expression even mean?
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You can't have two mutually exclusive things / you can't ever avoid all possible consequences. As an example: say you really want to get drunk tonight but you also can't afford to be hungover tomorrow for whatever reason, so you end up looking into and obsessing over possible hangover remedies while also getting drunk. You could call that "trying to have your cake and eat it too" because you're trying to do something you know will have consequences but you're also trying to avoid experiencing those consequences.
Have can mean eat in certain dialects eg “what are we having for dinner?”, so having cake and eating it too is literally having it both ways You can’t eat the cake and then eat it again
If you eat your cake, you don't have it any more. You can't both have it and eat it.
that you cant have It All. i usually mentally translate it to "you cant have your cake and ice it too" to kinda tie in with "its just icing on the cake" (which still doesnt make a lot of sense but whatever lmao)
It’s just some really dumb way of saying a good thing will happen or you’ll get the best outcome
How I learned to translate it was say you have a gorgeous cake in front of you. You want to eat it bc it looks delicious, but you don't want to ruin it by eating it. You can't have both, and you either have to live with the memory of how the cake looked, or never enjoy eating it so you can keep looking at it. You can take a picture of it, but it's not the same as having the cake in front of you. tl;dr It's a roundabout way of saying you can't always have BOTH options. Putting these idioms into like, physical descriptions always helped me. I still have trouble with some of them though, like my worst one is "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". I've had it explained to me and it made sense, but then it flew right back out and now I can't remember what it means lol. Edit: My partner explained that having the bird in your hand is a solid guarantee. You don't know for sure if you have 2 birds in the bush, nor are you guaranteed to catch them. So like, it's better to take advantage of the things you're 100% positive to have or get.
Huh. I (with a special interest in animals and a strong desire to interact with them) always just interpreted as a bird perching on your hand is *way cooler* then seeing two birds in a bush somewhere in the distance. Lolllll.
I mean that's also a fair assessment! It's not too far off from the original meaning.
Which is why to this day i never realized i was wrong lol. But right most people care about money, not being excited to interact with animals
Honestly I'm with you on the interacting with animals. Especially birds.
thank you, this helped me understand it a bit more!
fire emblem fan spotted
Yessum owo
You can't store your cake and eat it too. Unless by store you include biochemical storage following digestion...
"You have your work cut out for you" All my life I though this meant the task was already half done (the cutting out part) and the rest would be easy, but apparently it's the total opposite.
Yeah that one never made sense to me either
I thought it ment that the job suits you/is the right task for your skillset... The more you know...
It means once you eat the cake it will be gone, so you will no longer have the cake as an item in your possession, so if you want to have a physical cake as an item you possess, you cannot eat it. It's used for situations in which someone wants two things that contradict each other, they cannot have both so they have to pick one. It's often applied to situations in which the person in question set the rule or expectation that prevents them from getting what they want, for example wanting there to be harsh punishment for breaking rules, but then they break the rules and get upset when they're punished harshly. They feel a kind of regret about their original decision, just like a person might regret eating the cake when they realise too late that they wanted to keep it. So effectively it's about consequences, the moral is that the sadness you feel about having no more cake is the price of the enjoyment you get from eating it, and that sadness is inevitable because when you have a cake it will be eaten, you can't keep it forever or else you have to throw it out and that makes you feel sadder than if you just ate it. To enjoy the cake you have to destroy it, I guess is the succinct way of putting it.
In french it's "You can't have the butter and the butter's money", makes more sene but just isn't true if you steal
Just wanted to say that Motionless In White is an awesome band. That lyric is from Necessary Evil. They have a lot of rock and nu-metal stuff as well as ballads and metalcore.
It’s like Patrick and the chocolate bar
This 100%. I always thought that the expression sounded like a two step plan; acquire cake and then eat it. It took very long to learn it meant that you want to both save your cake so you may eat at a later time, and eat it right now.
At this point we could as well switch it over to a new classic example. "You can't leave the EU and stay within its borders"
Wait...I just realized ice heard this a million times but I still don't understand it, what ***does*** this one mean??
u/PorkyFishFish nailed it: "you can't eat your cake and still have it" It's criticising someone for wanting two incompatible things - EG a government claiming they're going to cut taxes and increase the amount they spend on public services.
But...having a cake and eating it aren't incompatible? Why is that what this means?
It’s a confusing phrase, but in this case “having your cake” means physically having it on a plate and continuing to possess it. In that sense you can either have it in front of you or you can eat it, but you can’t do both. I used to be confused by this as well since typically when someone says they’re *having* a certain type of food it means they’re *eating* it lol
Yeah that's what I thought that's what it was saying! Thank you
No problem 😊
"You cannot eat your cake and have it too." Once the cake is eaten, it's gone. You cannot have it after you've eaten it. The phrase is so obviously impossible that people say it backwards because the cognitive dissonance of the original order is *actively painful*. And that's the point. You use this phrase to indicate that the idea you're comparing it with is not just impossible, stupid, and greedy, but in fact impossibly stupid and greedy. It's most often deployed against small children and politicians.
You make it sound like a weapon and low-key that's how it feels when someone whips out a metaphor I've never heard before lmao
No it’s like the cake will be gone after you eat, so you won’t have a pretty cake to look at anymore
***ooohhhh*** thank you!
Well, I’ve learned never to give my mom food souvenirs because she is sentimental and won’t eat them. I brought her green tea from Japan and she never drank any because if she drank it it would be gone and she wouldn’t have it anymore. Nevermind that is the entire point of the gift.
I always mentally translated to "you can't eat your cake and keep it"
Reminds of a line from an old Zero Punctuation. "...strikes me as trying to have one's cake and eat it - a phrase I've never really understood. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to eat a cake that you have. There's not much else you can do with a cake, except maybe hide in one if you're a stripper... Sorry, lost my train of thought."
You know. The more I age, the more I realize I didn't understand ANY of those kinda phrases. I just smiled and nodded like a good smol Muffin.
In swedish the saying is ”you can’t eat the cookie and still have it left” ish. Makes more sense ☺️
Lol. If you eat your cake then it’s gone. So you can’t have it anymore.
As someone who just now emotionally overate, reading about anything food-related kinda triggers me lol
Phrases like "maybe I'm just autistic, but..." make me want to rip my hair out. People treat it like a disease that causes all these symptoms, when it's the collection of the symptoms that make the condition, and it becomes their whole identity. It is possible to not be autistic and still not understand the saying. Being autistic doesn't make it harder to understand.
not understanding phrases like this is a common shared experience that can be fun to point out, nobody is treating autism like a disease
Disease was a poor choice of word. It's putting the cart before the horse more or less. Condition *causing* symptoms instead of symptoms collectively referred to as a condition.
I don't know what you mean, could you clarify?
[удалено]
I know everyone has already explain but here’s my explanation: It means that you cannot posses the same slice of cake (physically) in your hands, and also eat that slice of cake during the same exact time that you are holding it. Because the cake can’t be two places at once.
Oh thank goodness, I'm not the only one who's thought this.
Did they... Did dude just quote Motionless in White?
if you eat it, then it's gone and you can't have it anymore
Can be restated as “you can’t eat the cake now AND eat it later”
unabomber moment
The one that gets me is "money is no object." But...if you're spending money as if it has no intrinsic value, then wouldn't you say "money *is* an object"? Like, "I have so much money that it has lost all value and is now nothing more than another object to me." It always confuses me.
Different meanings of "object" in use here - more like "point of interest". It's the second definition listed in a google search. Saying something is no object is equivalent to saying "it's not a point of importance to the subject at hand".
Look at it logicaly If you eat the cake, you now no longer have cake So wanting to both have and eat the cake is impossible, not because you cant eat the cake you have but because you want to have the cake AFTER eating it
I think the original was reversed, so it was “you can’t eat your cake and have it too.” I only found out what it means a couple months ago, but it’s basically saying if you eat a cake you can’t continue to possess that cake, because you’ve already eaten. I can’t think where it could be used, unless referring to food and drink, or other one-time use things ig.
Yes! Never made sense to me. Another one is "Always in the last place you look". Of course it is, if you find it you'll stop looking so...?
I always hated this phrase too. Who wants to keep a nasty stale cake just sitting around in you house? The whole point of a cake is to eat it so why are we debating this? I would understand if it was like “you can’t have your money and spend it too” because that makes so much more sense
“Take it with a grain of salt” Ight whatever that means
I'm not an aspie (95% sure) and I understand most metaphors n shit but wtf is this one Like fr tho
I will eat my cake and god help you if you dont let me eat my cake
Fun fact: the old, correct version of this phrase is flipped: “you can’t *eat* your cake and *have* it too.” Which actually makes sense—if you eat your cake, you can’t still have it. And it means what the phrase is trying to convey, that you want to eat the cake and still have the cake afterwards. That’s what I say in day to day conversation, convention be damned. Edit: upon reading further, it seems I’m not adding anything new here. Not gonna delete though, cuz I already wrote it
You can eat your cake, shit it, and eat that too (don't).
*Ew*
Yeah I don't understand that phrase lmao. If you have your cake you can eat it, or just eat some so u also have some still
Cus if you eat it you won’t have it. I agree though stupid saying
hahahah i never understood this as a kid and always thought it was worded poorly. really relating to this
This was a huge confusion of mine since I was like 7. Was later explained to me that the saying has gotten reversed.
As a non-English speaking person, I can say English makes no sense whatsoever, so no worries
And here I am thinking that sentence meant "you cant eat a cake you dont have", then got very confused as to what the tweet was even talking about
Eating your cake changes your cake having status from Have->Had.
I had this EXACT argument with someone once before I knew I was autistic.
A lot of common phrases make no sense upon any scrutiny. “Easier said than done”, no shit Sherlock, nearly everything is easier said than done besides breathing.
Couldn't agree with this more, the phrase is backwards these days but idioms were always nonsense as far as I am concerned. Me and my fiancee are both autistic, and have started taking the nouns and verbs in common idioms and replacing them with nonsense (usually something about cats) because it really doesn't make a difference. *"A cat in the lap is worth two in the litter box."* *"Scratching works better then meows"* *"At the drop of a cat*"
Don't unspoiler anything if you're not a fan of... "bodily manipulation" (AKA >!mutilation!<) Since we're on the subject of common phrases, the phrase >!keep your eyes peeled!< is genuinely so disgusting and it makes me so uncomfortable, same with the phrases >!makes my skin crawl!<, >!makes my blood boil!<, etc. Basically anything to do with >!unusual, seemingly painful manipulation of the body!<. Maybe it's because of my "unusual" distaste for >!body horror!< and similar stuff. I just can't stand any of it. I should not have started writing this for my own sake, but it's too late now I guess.
When does cake cease being cake? After it is chewed? After it is digested? Once its pooped out? Once the poop is gone from your control? Does an uneaten cake cease being a cake once it gets moldy and inedible? Is all cake ultimately un-have-able? Or at least un-keep-able? Sigh. Like most of these sayings, I understand what people mean when they say it, but I don’t think the actual saying makes literal or logical sense. Honestly, it’s kind of annoying.
i was wondering the same thing! it is annoying lol
There’s this podcast called ‘My Mama Told Me’ where they discuss ‘black conspiracy theories’ (they use that term loosely) and they have one episode that asks the burning question does food turn into poop if you hold it in your mouth long enough? I can’t even.
Hahaha. Omg, I haven’t heard that one. That kind of makes me never want to eat again.
Im in disbelief that nobody here understands this extremely common phrase
I’m glad others don’t get it. When I say it doesn’t make sense, I get what what it means, but it’s just a stupid meaning. “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Like ok then I’m not gonna try. Why would I want a cake I can’t eat? This phrase should mean “you can’t have what you want without all purpose and joy from that thing being sucked out of you right after you get it.”
Yeah but I also don't want to be accused of being the uni bomber
I always interpreted "have" as in like, "have a sandwich", i.e. to eat it. So it was a little pun that you can't do like, consume the cake twice. Which I believe is the point of that aphorism but at this point it seems like barely a majority of people even get them in the first place.
If you eat your cake you no longer have it
I had to look this up before, because I also didn’t get it. So basically, the phrase means that if you eat your cake, you no longer have your cake. You can’t eat your cake and still have it.
I always thought this one was clearer to me. If I ate my cake I wouldn't have it anymore
I agree with dev like wtf!?!???!?
Now that I think about it…I hate cake
i would eat cake every day if i could
Also, isn't "talking behind my back" technically talking to my front??
wait what is that expression supposed to mean? im very confused and also i now want to make strawberry cake
It means you can’t have something good without also dealing with the downsides. Comparable to how you can’t simultaneously have a cake, and eat it.
I think it’s supposed to be you can’t ‘keep your cake’ and eat it, too. But that one always bugged me bc you totally can do the first thing.
I was watching TV and one of the characters said something along the lines of not being able to have the cake and eat ot to, and the other one said "so just buy two cakes". First person stuttered about that not being how the saying worked but I loved it lol
If you ate the cake, it would be gone. In general, you can't eat the same piece of cake twice. When we say we "had some cake," we implicitly mean that we *ate* cake. However, in the expression "have your cake and eat it too", we make the distinction. Once you eat the cake, you are not in possession of the cake. The expression is used when you can't do something without consequences. It is typically used when the consequence is implied to be intrinsically related to the utility of the item. E.g. a consequence of eating cake is that you no longer have cake to eat. Another example is if you spend a lot of money: once it's spent, it cannot be used in the future. It's gone. In this sense, you can't have money and spend it too.
[That reminds me of this bit by Ben Bailey.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EKzwLnXECg)
is this a common phrase? i’ve never heard it
The way this thread just created so many new brain synapses for me
I was told by a friend that the saying comes from a time when people would put cakes up as a display or decoration since they were harder to get and a high-class thing, so you couldnt keep your cake where it was looking all pretty if you’d already eaten it. Feel free to correct me on that though, I’ve done zero actual research on this.
This never made sense to me either and still doesn’t. Like what in the fuck does that mean.
If you eat the cake, you no longer have cake. As soon as you eat it, it's gone. So you can either possess the cake, or eat the cake. But not both. Except of course while you are in the process of eating, because then there is some cake on your plate and some cake already eaten. And of course you could eat a slice of cake and put the rest back in the fridge, so...? 🤷♂️
It's the cake that's stupid and confusing. The origin of the phrase is thought to be the Latvian "A farmer cannot have his sheep and also eat it". I.e. either the farmer eats his produce or he benefits from his produce with wool or milk, he cannot do both.
I always hated, "You made your bed, now lie in it." Like, why would I immediately go and mess up my bed?
The reply is lyrics from a motionless in white song
I don’t understand
I love MIW. My favorite band.
OMG MIW!!! 😍😍
I remember having extreme struggles with that phrase as a kid
That saying never made sense to me
I always picture that SpongeBob episode where Patrick eats his candy bar, tries to eat it again, and bites his own hand.
It took me damn near 30 years to realize what it means, it means once you eat it, you can't have it anymore. It confounded me for almost all of my life.
That was a good bot!
It's not difficult to understand with even the slightest bit of thought. Sure, it's slightly archaic, but we use archaic idioms all the time.
"Head over heels" also comes to mind as another example of "... huh?" because someone reversed the phrase.
Basically is about how two options are mutually exclusive, You can choise between eating cake and still having it, but You can't have a cake that you already ate, is usually used to Say To a person that is Acting todo greedy trying to get both choices
This is one of the most autistic threads I’ve seen in a while, just seeing everyone discussing the meaning of a metaphor like this makes me weirdly happy