Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

By Professor Popinjay

First published October 5th, 2015

Jesse Orion asks:

Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?

Dear Jesse Orion:

—–I sit down on Sunday night ready to write. I am tired. But Jesse Orion has sent me a simple question requiring little research or so I think.   One could easily assume merely by the magnitude of my stature that I am no foreigner to baked goods. However, just to be safe, I check to see if there are any glaring omissions from my knowledge of cake and the act of eating it. I’d hate to write a dissertation on cake and find in retrospect that cake was recently used in some abhorrent act, making me look like some kind of insensitive cake-loving fiend.

—–The first headline that jumps to my attention is surprising: Idiosyncratic use of the phrase “Have your cake and eat it too” leads Judge to warrant search in Ted Kaczynski’s cabin.

—–That’s right. The seemingly incorrect use of this phrase supposedly led to the arrest and conviction of the so-called Unabomber. Thanks Jesse Orion! It’s going to be a long night.

—–The confusion of this phrase comes from our misinterpretation of the word “have”. In modern English we have come to regard the word “have” as meaning “eat” when used in a context regarding food. Example: “I am going to HAVE this whole pizza. You go eat something else.”

—–When we understand “have” to mean “possess” or “keep”, the phrase makes more sense. Obviously if you eat your cake, you won’t have it anymore. It will have been had. So, while the Unabomber was wrong to send bombs in the mail to people, at least he used good grammar.

—–When looking at other cultures’ versions of this concept, some more clarifying ideas are revealed. In the Malayalam language, a similar proverb is stated as, “You want both the one on the roof, and the one in your armpit.” I know nothing of domiciles in India and Singapore where Malaylam is spoken, but apparently you can’t collect things off the roof if you have things in your armpit. I’m guessing this proverb refers specifically to frisbees.

—–In Tamil, the congruent adage translates as, “You desire to have both the mustache and to drink the porridge.” There are two kinds of people in Sri Lanka: Those with mustaches and those who drink porridge. Hopefully they will be able to set aside their differences and combine their talents to invent a porridge that can be ingested through a straw. Until then, either publicly abstain from imbibing porridge, or leave your bushy bushy mustache at home.

—–The Hungarians and Serbians have a similar proverb. The Hungarian version says, “Egy fenékkel nem lehet két lovat megülni.” It is impossible to ride two horses with one butt.

—–Personally, I’ve never seen two horses that share a butt and even if I did, I would not try to ride it. Call me old fashioned but I prefer the standard 1 to 1 ratio when it comes to horses and associated butts. These newfangled single-butted double-horses I find confusing and unsettling.

—–In Serbian they say, “It is impossible to sit in two chairs with one butt.” Obviously, Serbians do not spend much time watching documentaries about American obesity. Time for me to lay off the porridge and grow a mustache. Moving on.

—–So maybe these multi-cultural renditions didn’t help clear things up much, but at least they were entertaining. Try these renditions instead…

In Hebrew the phrase makes much more sense: “You can’t eat a cake and keep it whole.”

—–That’s easy enough. In fact, it reminds me of my Swedish grandmother. When my father was young, Grandma would have one among my dad and his siblings cut the cake while another was then allowed to choose which piece went to whom. This practice holds true with the old Dutch civil law: “Je moet kiezen of delen.” You have to choose or partition. This is where in a division of property, one person divides the property into two parts and the other person chooses the part he likes most. My father explained, when it came time to divide the cake amongst five hungry brothers, fairness was fanatically observed, even to the point of employing electron microscopes and laser-guided cutlery. Of course, once they got the cake, they were faced with the oh so difficult decision of whether to have the cake or to eat it.

-My, that was fun, wasn’t it?

Professor Popinjay