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Eat your cake.....

Posted by Yvonne on October 26, 2003

In Reply to: Eat your cake..... posted by Thomas on October 26, 2003

The full expression is "You can't have your cake and eat it too" -- which makes it self-explanatory. As you rightly said, it means you can either have [keep] something or consume it, but not both. Over time, many well-known expressions develop "shorthand" versions (because listeners are familiar with them). "Have your cake and eat it" is one such example.

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