Where does the expression 'have your cake and eat it too' from?
925826
Really, it means you can't leave the cake intact (and enjoy it in that way) and also eat it (and enjoy it in that way) since by eating it you are cutting it.\nThis is a perfectly fine expression.  Explain the meaning to your friend.
624846
I have a reference from 1997 that already says it is old:\nhttp://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/august97/terror01.html\n\nThe fact that numerous sources fail to give the original source of the quote suggests that no-one actually knows when it was first used.
371696
the old saying  " I can have my cake and eat it to " For example::::: You are dating this guy, whom you love very much, and he cheats on you with another girl, he has you and this other chic to.... And even when you find out he has cheated, you say oh if my man ever cheated on me i would be gone I would leave him in a heart bear.... ya alot easier said than done...Most people cheat and when you say cheat,you mean sex.... because it is sex... they have sex with someone else, but they know they have more than that at home, they have a relationship...people cheat for sex, when they leave it cause they either dont love you anymore, or they have found something new
723886
Confused.  Really it's just another name for having your cake and eating it too.  That is a name made up by a man who wants men and women.  It's not fair and it's not natural.  That is the meaning.  Thank you.
417379
"I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin."\n\nWELL, MY FAVE!
436250
Not sure....what kind of cake was it?  Was it baked just for you? Did you mix it up, get the oven real hot and put it in yourself?  If you did, then it was all yours to eat!
624428
To wish to have one's cake and eat it too (sometimes eat one's cake and have it too) is to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things. This is a popular English idiomatic proverb, or figure of speech.
778170
I'm not entirely sure, but I think it originated with the Rolling Stones as they described their backstage parties for an interview of somesort. The saying has pretty much been adopted by every rock group and wannabe rocker eversince as a way of answering why they're in the music buisness.
536517
I'm not sure if it lends itself directly to the context you are using it for but there used to be a sort of country fair game called a cake walk.  People pay a certain amount to enter and are each given a cake or sweet on a plate.  Then they walk around a circular path to music and when the music ends the person who is standing inside a circle on the ground wins the cake they are carrying.  It's a pretty easy way of getting a cake so maybe that's why something easy is called "cakewalk"?
222134
the rest of the cake you made?
64214
THe point of the phrase is that once you eat your cake, you no longer have it. The first source mentioning it is a book of proverbs by John Heywood in 1546.
195641
The idiom is apparently derived from a centuries-old Scottish proverb, though some other references to pigs flying or pigs with wings are more famous. Here is one such reference from Lewis Carroll:\n\n"Thinking again?" the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.\n"I've a right to think," said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.\n"Just about as much right," said the Duchess, "as pigs have to fly...." — Alice in Wonderland, chapter 9.
44504
there are two supposed origins - \n1. is from the word nut, meaning hard seed, which is called "hnutu" in Old English or "*khnut" in Proto-Germanic\n\n2. from earlier be nutts upon "be very fond of" (1785), which is possibly from nuts (noun, plural) "any source of pleasure" (1617), from nut (described above). Sense influenced probably by metaphoric application of nut to "head" (1846, e.g. to be off one's nut "be insane," 1860). Nut "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903, (British form nutter first attested 1958).
194133
"piece of cake/easy as pie - The two expressions are remarkably alike in meaning. 'As easy as pie' is an American expression. Back in the 1890s 'pie' was a common slang expression meaning anything easy, a cinch; the expression easy as pie stemmed quite readily from that. A 'piece of cake' has a somewhat more devious history. According to the Oxford Dictionary, it first appeared in print in a work by Ogden Nash, who wrote in 1936: 'Her picture's in the papers now, and life's a piece of cake.' But, if it first turned up in America, it was swiftly adopted by British airmen in World War II. In 1943 the author of 'Spitfires over Malta' wrote: 'The mass raids promised to be a 'piece of cake' and we expected to take a heavy toll.' Certainly 'piece of cake' was more originally more popular in Britain than in the United States.\n\nBut here's another theory:\nEasy as pie (or apple pie) originated in Australia around 1920.   The Australian expression to be "pie at" or "pie on" something means to be very good at something (from the Maori word "pai" = good).
34548
I suspect this is a poetic expression that refers to the attitude of the person when he/she made the smile.  Think of the person wanting to say "Take that!" while smiling.  This is a way of expressing revenge, more or less.
809018
How about "Have it your way" - oh wait, that's Burger King
98950
"Who chose cake?"\n\nIt's exact etymology is unclear but this much is certain: the British coined the phrase. \n\n"The first documented appearance of the term is in 1943, in an small book of British military slang, although sources claim it was used in the RAF throughout World War Two, and was originally a Yorkshire dialect term in use at least since 1914."