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Think it’s a reference to having your cake and eating it too. Of course, in this case it might be applicable to pie. :)

I never really understood why ”you cannot have your cake and eat it too” saying, I mean, what’s the bloody point in having any cake if you cannot eat it?

Who would want delicious cake within reach and never being about to eat it? Sounds like bloody torment to me.

Rather like Tantalus’ eternal damnation in Hades. Turns out the gods of Olympus don’t much care for dads who murder and cook their firstborn son.

not that you will see this 4 years later, but the idea of “can’t have your cake and eat it too” refers to the fact that cakes are pretty and decorated and generally nice. Once you eat it, you can no longer have it. So you can have it and covet the fact you have cake or eat it, but you can’t have both

I’ve always preferred to look at it as “Eat your cake and have it too”. Always made more sense to me.

IIRC, that was the original form. Someone late on reversed it, and confused everyone no end.

I would guess it was someone confused by how you could have your cake after eating it, so reversed it so it could make sense. Despite the phrase being specifically about what one couldn´t do with cake.

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