(no subject)

[andrewducker]

In high school, I once dated two girls at the same time. Their names were Edith and Kate. Eventually, I got caught -- which goes to prove that you can't have your Kate and Edith too.

Comments

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

You know me, I hate to be pedantic but.. the phrase would actually have to be you can't Edith your Kate and have it too.

[spaj.livejournal.com]

I always heard "you can't have your cake and eat it to".

I rarely heard "you can't eat your cake and have it too"

Maybe it's a coloquialism. Maybe I should find out how to spell coloquialism.

Adam

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how to smell coloquialism. However, the real phrase is definitely ‘you can't eat your cake and have it too’. The phrase means, you must have either one or the other. So you actually can have your cake and eat it too. However, you cant eat your cake and have it too.

[rainstorm.livejournal.com]

i never heard your version, always the other...

[andrewducker]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=eat+your+cake+and+have+it

says you lie.

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

But you can have your cake and eat it too!!

[andrewducker]

doesn't matter. I've never heard your version.

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

Well Im going now.. to have my coffee and drink it too.

;)

[spaj.livejournal.com]

once you've drunk it, you won't have it anymore.

Adam

[davecleghorn.livejournal.com]

Yeah I know. So my mother’s wild relatives are to blame for my idiomatic version? Damn they’re inbred highland souls!

If it helps....

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

"In the English language, there is a proverb: 'You cannot have your cake and eat it too.' This saying expresses the idea that one cannot always have the best of everything and is sometimes forced to make an either/or choice. The first appearance of this saying is trace to John Heywood's A Dialogue Conteynyng Prouerbes and Epigrammes (1546): 'Wolde ye bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?' In the United States, it first appeared in the 1742 Colonial Records of Georgia in Original Papers, 1735-1752. In the beginning of his poem On Fame of 1816 , John Keats cites the proverb: 'You cannot eat your cake and have it too.'"

But somewhere along the line, someone switched the words around so it made less sense. I like your version better. I think of it as the "correct" version, and of the vast majority of people who say "have your cake and eat it too" as Just Plain Wrong.

Re: If it helps....

[darkoshi]

oops, i meant that other reply to be to this thread...

And actually you don't even need to have your own cake to be able to eat it, you can eat someone else's cake. Not to mention that even if you have cake and don't eat it, you may not have for long, since someone else may eat it up...

what's that other colloquialism that's the wrong way around?.... head over heels? which ought to be heels over head...

Re: If it helps....

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

I always use "ass over appetite," myself.