Sunday, September 10, 2006

EATING MY CAKE (Part 2)

OK, fine, so I didn't get it completely right in my last post on the subject, apparently I either misunderstood the phrase or heard it being used incorrectly. However, most of what I said still stands, though I need to change it from "makes absolutely no sense at all" to "Using a terrible example worded in a way which doesn't make much sense"
("Anonymous" kinda stole my thunder on this one in his (her?) comment on the previous post (I guess I shouldn't have waited so long before posting this) but I'll go ahead anyhow)

so what does "You cant have your cake and eat it too" actually mean?
To quote a couple of comments from the previous post:
" haven't you ever found a cake that was too pretty to eat? On the other hand, you want to eat it?"
"It means that you can't have two things which are mutually incompatible. Hence, "you can't have your cake and eat it too" - either you eat it, or you have it -but not both."

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I see a really good looking cake I'm thinking "That looks good! I gotta get me a piece of that cake" I'm definitely not thinking how terrible it is to no longer have such a pretty cake, -as I said in the previous post- what am I going to do with it? Frame it and hang it on the wall? At the very worst I might think "that's a nice cake, what a pity" but to want to keep it? No.

I think we see a difference between Men & Women's thinking here. (I think I'm cutting into Chasidishe Shaigitz's action here)

"Anonymous" pointed out those fancy cakes which don't get touched at L'chaims. But she (or is it he? I think I need to go with "It" to play it safe) missed part of it: at the end of the L'chaim they usually take those cakes from the women's side and bring them over to the men's side where they usually get at least partially eaten.
I always assumed that the reason they don't get touched on the women's side is that the women are all thinking "That cake looks so good, I would love to have a piece. But I cant have it 'cuz I'll gain to much weight"
apparently I was wrong.
It seems only half of them are thinking that.
The other half are thinking "That cake looks so good, I wish I could have a piece. But I can't -that cake is simply too pretty to be eaten"
Then it gets brought over to the men's side where (at least some of) the man seem to thinking "That cake looks good, I think I'll have a piece"

Of course I'm not talking about a cake which looks beautiful but looks like it tastes horrible. In that case I wouldn't want to eat it. However, the saying still wouldn't fit because here you only want to keep the cake, you don't want to eat it.

In other words this is a very bad example to illustrate the point of not being able to have 2 mutually incompatible things.
Either I want to eat it or I want to keep it, not both.
(or is it that a guy wants to eat it and a girl wants to keep it?)
A better example would be "you cant spend your money and invest it too" now that makes sense.

If you really insist on using cake as an example at least say it in a way that actually expresses the point (which doesn't make much sense) that you're trying to make: "You cant eat you're cake and keep it too"

Whatever you do, just don't try investing your cake or eating your money.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

From Wikipedia:
To wish to have one's cake and eat it too (sometimes eat one's cake and have it too) is to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things. This is a popular English idiomatic proverb, or figure of speech.

The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?", alluding to the impossibility of eating your cake and still having it afterwards; the modern version (where the clauses are reversed) is a corruption which was first signaled in 1812.

Comedian George Carlin once critiqued this idiom by saying, "When people say, 'Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.' What good is a cake you can't eat? What should I eat, someone else's cake instead?". Of course, in the original correct form (eat your cake and have it too), Carlin's critique does not apply.

September 10, 2006 12:08 PM  
Blogger Renegade said...

anon: thanks, it's nice to see that "wikipedia" & George Carlin agree with me on the matter ;)

reminds me of when I was in yeshiva, just about every time I came up with a (in my opinion) brilliant question or answer I would be told something like "Good question, look up the pnei yehoshua, he asks that question and gives a great answer"
(believe it or not, there actualy was a time when I would actualy learn a little something here and there.)

September 10, 2006 4:17 PM  
Blogger Nemo said...

Good save!

September 10, 2006 7:36 PM  
Blogger Pre-K @ Cheder Chabad said...

thanks for the tip on money and cake, and it get confused all the time

September 11, 2006 1:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you would need to be married to come up with your men/women theory, because having a cake thats too pretty to eat is a concept that I still cannot comprehend.

September 11, 2006 6:06 PM  
Blogger Renegade said...

Nemo: thanks!

G: notice how I said the women are thinking that. Believe me, I would never think that.

September 13, 2006 11:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

to rephrase wikipedia into simple english: if you eat the cake you dont have it anymore, so you can either eat it or have it but not both.

November 01, 2006 2:16 PM  
Blogger Menucha photography said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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