Have your cake and eat it / Have your cake and eat it too (English) OR Eat your cake and have it (Nigerian English) (See more…)

 The correct idiom can be either of these two:

‘Have your cake and eat it’ which is British English, or ‘have your cake and eat it too’ which is American English.

The idiom means to have the benefit of enjoying two incompatible things or two opposing choices. It is often used to convey that someone is trying to have two advantages or pleasures at the same time which is not normally possible.

The phrase is thought to have originated from the idea that if you have a cake, you can either keep it (have it) or eat it, but you cannot do both. Once you eat the cake, it is gone, and you cannot have it anymore. 

So, ‘have your cake and eat it’ means to find a way to enjoy both options simultaneously, which is usually impossible.

The reversed phrase which is common usage in Nigeria is ‘eat your cake and have it.’ This option seems a bit more confusing. It is like saying, ‘eat it first, and then have it.’ This makes it complex in the context of the idiom. 

The invention of the Nigerian version may be due to lack of familiarity with the idiomatic expression   -   ‘have your cake and eat it.’ 

‘Have your cake and eat it’ is a fixed expression, and altering the word order changes its meaning.