Īccording to Google Ngram Viewer, a search engine that charts the frequencies of phrases throughout the decades, the eat-have order used to be the most common variant (at least in written form) before being surpassed by the have-eat version in the 1930s and 40s. Knopf's Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 (1959). A modern-sounding variant from 1812, "We cannot have our cake and eat it too", can be found in R. In a posthumous adaptation of Polite Conversation, called Tittle Tattle or, Taste A-la-Mode, released in 1749, the order was reversed: "And she cannot have her Cake and eat her Cake". In Jonathan Swift's 1738 farce Polite Conversation, the character Lady Answerall says "she cannot eat her cake and have her cake". In John Davies's Scourge of Folly of 1611, the same order is used, as "A man cannot eat his cake and haue it stil." The phrase occurs with the clauses reversed in John Heywood's A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue from 1546, as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?". History and usage Īn early recording of the phrase is in a letter on 14 March 1538 from Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, to Thomas Cromwell, as "a man can not have his cake and eat his cake". Ĭhoosing between having and eating a cake illustrates the concept of trade-offs or opportunity cost. Another, less common, version uses 'keep' instead of 'have'. 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. Some find the common form of the proverb to be incorrect or illogical and instead prefer: " You can't eat your cake and have it (too)". 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."įor those unfamiliar with it, the proverb may sound confusing due to the ambiguity of the word 'have', which can mean 'keep' or 'to have in one's possession', but which can also be used as a synonym for 'eat' (e.g. It can be used to say that one cannot have two incompatible things, or that one should not try to have more than is reasonable. The proverb literally means "you cannot simultaneously retain possession of a cake and eat it, too". You can't have your cake and eat it (too) is a popular English idiomatic proverb or figure of speech.
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