Sunday 1 March 2009

A Minor Rant-ette...

Grrrrrrr.

One of the (many) things which really gets up my nose is the mis-quoting of certain sayings and proverbs.

The particular bugbear I have in mind is "I want to have my cake and eat it."

Obviously, one must be in possession of the cake before one can consume it. Therefore, it seems to be rather important to have one's cake and eat it... which means that the saying is actually meaningless.

In fact, the expression is: "To want to eat one's cake, and have it too..." thereby suggesting that despite wanting to make use of something (so that it is ended or finished), one still wants to remain in possession of it, ready to make use of it at a convenient point in the future.

Rant-ette over. Thank you for listening...

3 comments:

Ttony said...

In Mancunian, "she wants her cake and her ha'penny".

Rachel said...

Thank you! I shall avoid that error in future. :)

Cookie said...

Wow, never even thought of that before. From one grammar fanatic to a seeming other, thanks! :)

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