Heard on Springer: "You can't have your cake, and ice cream, too!"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Wasn't the original form, "You can't eat your cake and have it too"?
>
> I've never heard it put that way, but I've seen it often in 19th C. books.

Yep. See my "On Language" reader response from last year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/magazine/20FOB-onlanguage-t.html

"Eat"-"have" dates to 1546, and "have"-"eat" to 1749. "Have"-"eat"
began outpacing "eat"-"have" in the mid-20th c.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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