The common use of this phrase is reversed. The original phrase says that you can’t eat your cake and have it, too, which makes much more sense.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Where’s the metaphor? What’s the idiom?
So what if it’s reversed? “and” isn’t the same thing as “then”. The idiom is identical in meaning no matter which order the clauses are in. Here, “and” means “but at the same time” while “have” means “possess”.
So what’s the big freakin’ problem?!?!
I have cake. I’m having it. I’m having it. I still have it. Now I’m eating it. Still eating it. It’s gone, so I don’t have it nor am I eating it.
It goes have-eat-gone. There is no stage where one both has it and is eating it. It’s like you people can’t speak English or something!
But you know what irks me the most? When someone starts a semi-original thread by taking a done-to-death idea and adding a caveat to make it interesting, and by page one, posters have reverted to the d-t-d topic. So how about sticking with freakin’ metaphors already, m’kay? :mad:
Actually, the saying is, “There’s no I in team.” Which is grammatically correct, but overlooks the fact that as you mentioned, “team” does have a “me”.
Again, these are not metaphors. This has turned into a “phrases/sayings that just irk you.” What’s the deal?
Here’s a great lnk to some classic phrases: http://mobile.associatedcontent.com/article/529409/33_annoying_expressions_that_killed.html
(Sorry it’s ugly, I’m mobile, literally)
I loved the post about “It is what it is”. OOOOH!! That phrase uttered will put me on a CNN alert broadcast. 
I’ll add “There’s no time like the present.” Like the prophet George Carlin said, “There is no present, there is only the recent past and the immediate future.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…
On the whole cake thing, the way it was explained to me (when I was a little girl asking what it was supposed to mean) was something along the lines of, referring to a very very pretty decorated cake, one that is so pretty that you don’t want to cut into or ruin the looks of, but if you don’t, you won’t actually get to eat it.
So you can’t “have” that is, get to keep to look at and admire, your cake and eat it too.
YMMV
“We need to send a message to those politicians!” Heard this one again today. Sigh.
It’s pompous, it’s arrogant, it’s stupid. Mostly, it’s stupid. If you want to send a message, try e-mail.
Any cute catchphrase that runs all over the internet so fast that everyone is falling over themselves trying to use it first, without realizing they sound like a bunch of copycats. It makes me hella throw up a little in my mouth.
“Spare the rod and spoil the child”
Is that advice? Does that mean it’s better not to punish the child and coddle them instead for misbehaving? If it’s a warning, why not phrase it as “If you spare the rod, you’ll spoil the child” and make the meaning clearer? Who spanks children with rods anyway? I don’t think it was ever common practice to beat children with rebar.
We did. We used to call it a rebarrin’. Hurt somethin wicked fierce.