But the phrase has nothing to do with pockets, except by coincidence.
When did they change the thread title to “Common English phrases that you hate”?
It’s “have your cake AND eat it, too.” It’s not “have your cake THEN eat it, too.” At any point in time, you can either eat it or have (keep) it, but not both.
Because things have more than one attribute. If I have a drawer full of white tee shirts, a red tee, and a blue polo, the polo is more unique than the red tee. It’s unique in color and type. If you insist that truly unique things are unique in every attribute, then everything in the universe is unique once one invokes the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
“…and that’s why your Uncle Ronnie likes to always wear the bunny costume.”
Apparently, the folklorist W. P. Webb coined the word ‘gruntle’ as a backformation from ‘disgruntle’ in 1926. His definition was ‘to put in a good humor’, as in “were gruntled with a good meal and good conversation.”
Thanks to this thread while reading last night I came across a passage where someone was referred to as having been “beat up” and found myself wondering at the logic of the phrase. “Beat down”, yeah; but how do you beat someone up?
There are a number of phrases in English where the negation gets screwed up.
“I could care less.”
This is of course the most common, and the one that tends to get people’s blood boiling. But there are some others, such as:
“That’ll teach you to stay out late.” What is meant, of course, is that that (whatever it is) will teach you to not stay out late.
“The Judge Institute is a building that no-one in Cambridge can fail to ignore.” And other phrases with “fail to ‘blank.’”
“It’s impossible to underestimate the value of early diagnosis of breast cancer.” Underestimate should be overestimate.
This web site (Language Log: Why are negations so easy to fail to miss?) is where I got these examples, and the reason for them (to spoil the surprise) is that less, fail, and so on aren’t grammatically negative, but in a certain sense seem negative.
[ul]
[li]beat up[/li][li]show up - arrive[/li][li]show up - best someone[/li][li]turn up[/li][li]thought up[/li][li]mess up[/li][li]fuck up[/li][li]act up[/li][li]saddle up[/li][li]screw up[/li][li]walk up (you may actually walk down a hill to walk up to someone!)[/li][li]grind up[/li][li]chop, hack, slice up[/li][li]stir up[/li][/ul]
That actually does make sense. It means “not without a reason” which is the same as “for no reason” or, a little sloppily but accurately “not for nothing”
Yeah, I was reading it and thinking “have I missed something here?”
It basically reads like “it is theoretically possible that I could care less about <thing> than I do right now, but I don’t”. So basically, you are not saying that you care the least you possibly can. Which is a crappy insult.
Sure it does. It’s hyperbole. It’s like telling someone he’s lower than a snake’s belly in quicksand. He’s so contemptible he’s simply not worth the effort.
When asked if I’m available or willing to do something, I can say I’m up for it or down for it and they both mean the same thing. Either way, what does my desire to take part in activity have to do with my direction?
Yeah, when the insult has two such completely different - and possibly valid - interpretations then frankly it has failed as an insult.
I do, however, see your interpretation as an excuse given to try and validate what was essentially a screw up. Some people started saying it wrong and came up with a half-arsed interpretation as a validation rather than holding up their hands and saying “we screwed up”.
I’ve noticed there’s a helpful tip right in the middle of this thread’s title:
“Common English phrases that, when you really think about it, don’t make sense.”
Anyone can have their cake and eat it too, so that’s a rather pointless thing to say. As an erstwhile pithy saying, it certainly lacks pith.
When you put it the other way around however, it has meaning. People have just screwed it up so much over time that the incorrect version has become normal-- much like the “I could care less” silliness. Most folks just don’t think about what they say. Dopers usually do.
To the truly insightful, one will understand the claim that it is only possible to truly have one’s cake once it has been eaten. For when cake has been consumed, it has become a part of you, you have it inside you, and it would be very difficult to remove. Before it is eaten, having the cake is merely an illusion or a social agreement. Therefore, the proper expression should be “You can only have your cake if you eat it too.”