this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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"Can't have your cake and eat it too"
vs.
"Can't eat your cake and have it too"
Only one of these makes sense, but the other one is what's been used for a long time now. If I have a cake, then I can definitely eat it, but if I eat it, then I can no longer have it.
Edit: I don't mean to disagree with the simple fact that languages evolve over time. But having a majority dictate the meanings of words isn't something I like. The example of "antisemitism" (a bunch of people are using the word to describe valid criticism of the state of israel) raised in an other comment here is also very relevant.
If you change "have" to "keep" it is clearer in both instances. The second interpretation is clearer because it puts the consumption verb first, which implies this action precedes the subsequent verb. But the underlying statement holds true in either instance.
The joke of "antisemitism" is that Semitic People include Arabs and modern day Ethiopians/Somalians, two groups who are very explicitly and unapologetically persecuted by the Israeli state government. They do not include Eastern European expats who came to the Levant by way of Philadelphia.
Modern Western media describes an antisemite as a kind of anti-white racist critical of other western Jewish people in elite social circles. But the actual historical antisemitism - the one Henry Ford railed against in The International Jew and spammed across post-WW1 Europe after getting his brain cooked by Protocols of the Elders of Zion - is rooted in Christian Nationalism and anti-Immigration conspiracy theories that fit far more neatly with post-9/11 anti-Muslim racism and Cold War hostility towards the Third World.
The manipulation of language in this instance is a very deliberate effort to judo-flip the very idea of bigotry. You turn social energy aimed at pursuing an equitable and egalitarian society into an excuse to segregate the population and persecute poor immigrants and minorities.
Can also contort it back into still kinda working the wrong way around by interpreting "have" as in consuming it, like synonym for eat.
Have you had your cake yet?
No?
Have it now.
Have your cake.
Had it?
Good.
Now eat it...
Cant?
Already had it.
... Cleverly unwrongs it.
Would be simpler if just said "cant eat your cake and have it".
Or was.
Before I just brought up "have"'s ability to be a synonym for eat.