You Say Tomato: Difference between revisions

To-may-to, to-mah-to

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to

 

When one character has his own weird pronunciation for a certain word, and everybody can't help commenting. This can be used to contrast a hick and a posh person.

 

Not to be confused with [[It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY"]]. May result in [[Got Me Doing It]].

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== Advertising ==

* [[Memetic Mutation|Diabeetus]], courtesy of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1c4WXElPaE Wilford Brimley.]

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Rain Man]]'' is, of course, based on a child's pronunciation of "Raymond".

* In ''[[The Hangover]]'', the future brother-in-law pronounces "ree-tard" as "re-taard".

** Lampooned in ''[[The Colour of Magic (film)|The Colour of Magic]]'' film, as Twoflower (who is played by Sean Astin, who also played Sam Gamgee in ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' film) goes completely overboard with the pronunciation of "potatoes".

* [[Megamind]] upon being corrected in his pronunciation responds "potato tomato, potato tomato" without changing the pronunciation at all.

** His unique pronunciation of "Metro City" (i.e. as if it's all one word that rhymes with "atrocity") serves as a [[Something Only They Would Say]] when he's trying to disguise himself as Metro Man.

 

== Literature ==

* In one of the [[James Bond]] novels, it's mentioned that Bond's landlady has a problem with the ''m-n'' pairing as well, referring to something as "crinimal".

* Common in the ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' stories, being based on the playacting of a little boy. Notable examples include Woozles (weasels), Heffelumps (elephants), Jagulars (jaguars), Tigger (tiger) and Winnie the Pooh himself (based on Winnipeg, a bear at the London Zoo).

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* [[Christopher Walken]] hosted an episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' where he performed the [[Trope Namer]] song... unfortunately, as he was reading it off of cue cards, he simply pronounced it "po-TAY-to" each time. Jimmy Fallon tried to correct him... so he switched to "po-TAH-to" both times.

 

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* The children of ''[[The Family Circus]]'', most often Jeffy, pronounce some words in a nonstandard way.

 

== Radio ==

* BBC radio comedy show ''[[Son of Cliche]]'' subverted this, in a sketch where the two singers perfoming ''"Let's call the whole thing off"'' go to the producer complaining the song doesn't make sense. One, an American, complains the lines are nonsense - she proves her point by singing ''You say tomayto and I say tomayto'', using the "tomayto" pronunciation throughout. Her Engish co-singer similarly says ''You say poh-tay-to and I say poh-tay-to'' is just as silly. He frankly can't see the point of the song either...

 

* Comedian [[Ron White]], in one of his bits, makes fun of a person pronouncing "coupons" as "KOO-puns".

* Alan Davies had this joke back when he did stand-up on how some people pronounced "falafel" as "fliffel".

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[Bugs Bunny]] is fond of odd pronunciations. "Maroon" for "moron" is perhaps the best known. Part of it is his accent, but much of it seems to be affectation.

* Norbit from ''[[Angry Beavers]]'' likes to draw out syllables, saying "mee-oo-vee" for "movie" to name one example.

 

== Real Life ==

* Children often pronounce words differently, such as "malk" for milk, "shigger" for sugar and "pasgeti" for spaghetti

* Many Americans pronounce it "nucular" instead of "nuclear". This instability is frighteningly close to standard American, in fact.

* An Australian in New Zealand or a New Zealander in Australia would often be asked to say "fish and chips". This is due to the difference in the short "i" sound between the two accents. "fish and chips" allegedly sounds like "fush and chups" with a New Zealand accent and "feesh and cheeps" with an Australian one.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Accent Tropes]]