On Having Your Cake and Eating It
Instead of the usual cathartic plot-hole-spotting conversation on our evening dog walk last night, my husband and I were discussing the common idiomatic proverb “You can't have your cake and eat it”. This was all prompted by our dog attempting and failing to eat some of my Cornetto while carrying his ball in his mouth!
It was a total coincidence that this geeky conversation took place on le 14 juillet/la Fête Nationale, because it also got me thinking about how the reductive term “Bastille Day” is just as problematic as «Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!» [Let them eat cake] being incorrectly attributed to Marie Antoinette. Like most aphorisms, the “eating cake” one is fundamentally flawed.
Here is how you can absolutely have your cake and eat it:
1) Timing & Order: There is an implicit “then” in the sentence. It is assumed that the phrase refers to simultaneous actions but what if we are to assume that the actions are, in fact, sequential? One assumption is no more or less valid than another. You can have your cake and [then] eat it. This is perfectly possible. In fact, if you've ever bought a piece of cake, you will have had it (in your hands or perhaps on your face) before you ate it.
2) Ambiguous meaning of “have”: It is entirely possible that “have” could be inferred to mean “consume” in which case the phrase contains a pleonasm (repetition of the same idea). You can have (i.e. consume) your cake and eat (i.e. consume) your cake. “You can't consume your cake and consume your cake” is nonsensical, conveying no logical idea whatsoever.
3) Unspecified amount: Is it always ALL or NOTHING? Is it not conceivable that you could eat part of the cake therefore leaving part in existence outside of your digestive system? That way, you would have part of the cake and you would eat part of the cake, therefore having [some of] your cake and eating [some of] it.
Now for the fun foreign part.
French: the equivalent French idiom is not buttery smooth. On ne peut pas avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre (lit: you can't have butter and the butter money) is flawed, albeit not quite to the extent of its English counterpart. The first and third arguments apply to the French phrase almost as well as they do to the English one. The second argument doesn't hold: there is no pleonasm because the verb avoir is not repeated, and the phrase is less ambiguous overall.
However, many other languages do it better than English. They succeed in conveying the meaning quite clearly, albeit not always in a politically correct way (yes, Italian – you're the problem, di nuovo!). Some examples:
Spanish: No se puede estar en misa y repicando (lit: you can't be at Mass and ringing the bells). This refrán avoids most of the issues mentioned above. The gerund (the -ando form of repicar which is the equivalent of the “-ing” form of “to ring” in English) renders the first argument redundant, specifying the current/present nature of the action and disallowing sequentiality. The bell ringing is occurring when Mass is taking place. You can't attend and be flaunting your campanologist skills simultaneously, unless you and your handbells fancy excommunication.
Italian: Non si può avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca (lit: you can't have a full barrel and a drunk wife). Grammatically speaking, this idiom holds up much better than the English version. It withstands argument one, albeit not perfectly, but better than the English, as it hinges on two incongruous states. If the barrel is full, the wife is probably sober; if it’s empty, she’s likely drunk. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility of the barrel being empty of alcohol, the wife being drunk and the man's dead body rendering the barrel full. Moving on, this idiom also holds up to the second argument seeing as there is no scope for repetition or redundancy with the verb avere (to have). Finally, the “all or nothing” argument is a false dichotomy. The clever reference to “full” barrel is the hero here, making it clear the proverb relies on absolute terms. Even if the barrel is partially empty, it's still not full, so the contradiction remains intact. A “half-full” barrel doesn’t transform the drunk wife into a sober one.
German: Man kann nicht auf zwei Hochzeiten gleichzeitig tanzen (lit: you can't dance at two weddings at the same time). In true German language style, the phrase explicitly minimises ambiguity. It literally states gleichzeitig (at the same time), leaving no room for any application of the second argument, no overlap to explore. Similarly, there are no issues pertaining to quantity either, so argument three is out. The proverb is robust, relying on a clear-cut contradiction. You can't be in two places at once, dancing or otherwise, quantum mechanics notwithstanding.
I'll leave you mulling over these linguistic beauties:
Portuguese: Não se pode ter a faca e o queijo na mão (lit: you can’t have the knife and the cheese in your hand).
Turkish: Aynı anda hem yağmur hem de güneş olmaz (lit: you can’t have both rain and sunshine at the same time).
Irish (Gaeilge): Ní féidir leat an tóin a bhualadh agus an t-airgead a chur i dtaisce san am céanna (lit: you cannot pat your arse and save your money at the same time). I suspect the nineties and noughties ASDA adverts closing out with the infamous mom jean pocket tap might have something to say about this one…