“Can’t have your cake and eat it too”
vs.
“Can’t eat your cake and have it too”
Only one of these makes sense, but the other one is what’s been used for a long time now. If I have a cake, then I can definitely eat it, but if I eat it, then I can no longer have it.
Edit: I don’t mean to disagree with the simple fact that languages evolve over time. But having a majority dictate the meanings of words isn’t something I like. The example of “antisemitism” (a bunch of people are using the word to describe valid criticism of the state of israel) raised in an other comment here is also very relevant.
Can also contort it back into still kinda working the wrong way around by interpreting “have” as in consuming it, like synonym for eat.
Have you had your cake yet?
No?
Have it now.
Have your cake.
Had it?
Good.
Now eat it…
Cant?
Already had it.
… Cleverly unwrongs it.
Would be simpler if just said “cant eat your cake and have it”.
Or was.
Before I just brought up “have”'s ability to be a synonym for eat.
If I have a cake, then I can definitely eat it, but if I eat it, then I can no longer have it.
If you change “have” to “keep” it is clearer in both instances. The second interpretation is clearer because it puts the consumption verb first, which implies this action precedes the subsequent verb. But the underlying statement holds true in either instance.
The example of “antisemitism” (a bunch of people are using the word to describe valid criticism of the state of israel) raised in an other comment here is also very relevant.
The joke of “antisemitism” is that Semitic People include Arabs and modern day Ethiopians/Somalians, two groups who are very explicitly and unapologetically persecuted by the Israeli state government. They do not include Eastern European expats who came to the Levant by way of Philadelphia.
Modern Western media describes an antisemite as a kind of anti-white racist critical of other western Jewish people in elite social circles. But the actual historical antisemitism - the one Henry Ford railed against in The International Jew and spammed across post-WW1 Europe after getting his brain cooked by Protocols of the Elders of Zion - is rooted in Christian Nationalism and anti-Immigration conspiracy theories that fit far more neatly with post-9/11 anti-Muslim racism and Cold War hostility towards the Third World.
The manipulation of language in this instance is a very deliberate effort to judo-flip the very idea of bigotry. You turn social energy aimed at pursuing an equitable and egalitarian society into an excuse to segregate the population and persecute poor immigrants and minorities.
judo-flip
Languages are living things. And living things always change. Note the Great English Vowel Change. Even the Norwegian my Grandfather spoke and that I learned from him was virtually a dead language that modern Norwegians stopped using in the 1850s. And the English spoken in the UK is different than the American English I speak. Spanish spoken in Spain isn’t the same as someone from Mexico speaks.
And when conversing with someone, (in the language of your choice), the words you choose to use are defined by the context you use them in. Words can have multiple meanings, but it’s the context and tone clarifies those meanings. Consider all the meanings of the single word ‘fuck’.
But problems start with written words. And many people have poor written communication skills. It can be hard to parse meaning from poorly written words because there is little context and tone that comes through with a typed sentence.
We are all just baying at the moon like any pack. And hoping some understands us.
Written word is a facsimile of a facsimile of what we’re actually communicating. We go from nebulous thoughts, concepts not bound by language, to sounds that roughly convey those concepts, and then to squiggly lines that roughly convey those sounds, and then back up the chain in the other person. Really, it’s a miracle we understand each other at all.
I would say this is not universal. For some, the written word is the native “tongue”, conveying the actual, intended meaning. The written word allows the speaker the opportunity to evaluate and revise their language to match their intent, and the listener the opportunity to re-evaluate previously transmitted thoughts.
The oral variant is dependent on the real-time aptitude of the speaker to articulate their thoughts and message, and for the listener to extract that meaning from the same. For those of us handicapped in these traits, the spoken word is the poor facsimile for actual (written) communication.
There are those constraints around written/spoken word, for sure. I’m more referring to how close it is to the “raw” thought.
We evolved the ability to think. In order to allow our thoughts to reach others, we developed spoken word. In order to allow those spoken words to be passed through time, we developed written word. Each refers back to the previous “layer” of communication.
Even someone who has a speech impediment, for instance, is still using the same written language as someone else in the same culture. And that written language was developed specifically to try and evoke the words someone in the culture speaks.
For all intensive purposes, the meaning of words matters less than how we use it. Irregardless of how we decimate it’s meaning, so long as we get the point across there is no need to nip it in the butt. Most people could care less.
Guess I’m out of a job.
Who guesses? You? Me? Everyone?
I’m not guessing, I know, they’re fired!
“Everyone” is a very, very high bar.
My pet peeve is ‘loose’ being used when ‘lose’ is intended. It’s so common now it might as well be the new spelling but I will die on this hill. I’ve had people comment in response to me correcting someone like I’m being ridiculous. Feels like I’m taking crazy pills!
I have such a kneejerk reaction to say “lectern” when people say “podium” that when they really do mean “podium” I have to correct myself. 😅
Seems like a variant of hypercorrection.
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I am just Decimated by this argument!
Really begs the question of what language even means
I have a theory
nice
It is a social construct
The language we use today is a bastardization of how language was. Every complaint you make about people using language wrong someone has made about the language you are using. And they complained first
3rd world. Anyone that uses the old definiton is being intentionally obtuse. And annoying.
Why would you use that term at all then? If you mean a developing or under-developed country why not say that?
I thought that certain languages (I want to say French?) do not work this way.
They all work the same way. Some institution saying otherwise doesn’t chance that.
Well that rather shuts down that potentially interesting conversation thread.
What would the conversation be about exactly? Legitimacy of language institutions, or?
I’m not interested in fighting you.
I’m not interested in fighting you either, I was just asking, perhaps the interesting conversation still could’ve occurred. (Admittedly that other reply to you is really good and extensive, and I wouldn’t have much to add after that.)
This is not the first time I hear someone singling out French for this and I kind of wonder why.
Yes, there is a prescriptive institution “Académie Française” and yes it has had an influence on the normalisation of French in the past (like, 400 years ago).
No, linguistically, it does not work that simply (French is not prescriptivist), and it’s been a while since anyone gave a damn what this institution says. French marches on, and the Académie is largely regarded as an illegitimate group of old men who try to force a classicist and artificial version of the language of their own making. They also have other missions which aren’t about prescribing usage, but that’s not what you usually hear about.
Also no, this institution no longer dictates what “proper” French is, and by that I mean it does not dictate it “legally” anymore. It never did, linguistically speaking.
And finally, I don’t know why it is that French is the language always used when it comes to descriptivism vs prescriptivism. From my admittedly limited knowledge, it looks to me like at least in western Europe, English is the exception rather the rule regarding this. Other countries and languages have had prescriptivist institutions propped up in the past to try and dictate usage of the language.
In all cases, whatever they say does not automatically become gospel. You can make a point that such institutions can suggest usages, but they can’t force them. Like the other commenter said, this is not how languages work. Ultimately, whatever the institutions say, if the people don’t use it this way, then the institution is wrong.
Lots of French creoles and patois across the ex-French-empire. The French authorities can define it as not “French” if they don’t like it, but I doubt the speakers care.
Damn right. Also, to the address of my far too numerous fellow Frenchmen from metropolitan France who are irritated by your post and mine above: Swiss French is French, Belgian French is French, Quebec French is French, Cajun is French, and so are the multitude of other ones the post above mentions, and if you don’t accept it, please listen to “La ballade des gens qui sont nés quelque part” from Georges Brassens. He has something to say about you.
Ok ok… I’ll be the one…
“Wrongly”
Think different
Some flat adverbs sound perfectly natural to most speakers, like “play nice” or “drive safe”. Others have less acceptability among people in general, like “That tastes real good.”
Tastes real goodly.
I don’t even see “nice” in “play nice” as an adverb. You could switch “play” for “be” – “be nice”, same with “be safe”.
Playly not nice.
There’s that old line that if my aunt had wheels she’d be a bicycle. Maybe the command form is muddling the topic here, but using the be-verb with an adjective like that attaches a subject complement, essentially describing the subject. But “I am fast” describing a person doesn’t mean that saying “I drive fast” is describing a drive as a noun.
no worries I’ll use it the wrongliest
You can always go wrongliester!
I’ll use it righteously.
not not-heinous
I’m gonna use it wrongteously
Good wrongliesterness.
He wrongly assumed he was using the word wrongly.
Very bigly, indeed!
Incidentally, I really hate that the UK expression for when someone is feeling sick is “poorly”.
It’s got the “ly” ending which is one of the clear signs of an adverb, and in other contexts it is used as an adverb. But, for some reason the British have turned it into an adjective meaning sick. Sometimes they use it in a way where it can be seen as an adverb: “He’s feeling poorly”, in which case it seems to be modifying “feeling”. In the North American dialect you could substitute the adjective “sick”: “He’s feeling sick”. But, other times they say “She won’t be coming in today, she’s poorly”. What is the adverb modifying there, “is”?
Washing-up fluid.
Washing up what?
Dishes?
Dishwasher fluid.
Why fluid, not liquid? Air is a fluid too. Is it in gaseous form?
Also, why “washing-up”? Was “washing” not enough? Was a direction strictly necessary?
Plasma?
Would’ve
Wouldn’t’ve
Wootnoofcootnoofshootnoof
18th century grammar nerds literally shitting and pissing and crying right now
I sometimes wish english had not drifted so far, and not been orwellianised so much, such that we’d still be able to read 18th century political philosophers, without pains.
… I suppose now we could get an LLM to rewrite (e.g.) Bakunin[1] in bro-speak, cat-speak, and memes.
[1: Oops! No, Bakunin’s 19th century[2]. William Godwin then.] [2: That’s worse, that already 19th century’s already getting unreadable. … How long until Orwell’s 1984’s unreadable?]
