cake [ME] This is a Scandinavian word and the first cakes were small flat bread rolls baked hard on both sides by being turned during the baking process—you can see the idea of a rounded flattened shape surviving in fishcake and potato cake. The idea behind the saying you can’t have your cake and eat it is that you cannot enjoy both of two equally desirable but mutually exclusive things. Forms of the expression have been around since at least the mid 17th century. Let them eat cake is what Marie-Antoinette (1755–93), wife of Louis XVI (1754–93) of France, is alleged to have said on being told that her people had no bread. (The French word she is supposed to have used was brioche, not cake.) This story is good, but its authenticity is suspect—Louis XIV’s wife is supposed to have said ‘Why don’t they eat pastry?’ in a similar situation.