Becca Jane St Clair

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Tah-MAY-to, Tah-MAH-to

Yesterday, Tim and I went over to visit our friends N and P. They live over the Wolds, about 25 minutes away and we always try to get together with them as often as we can. We like spending time with them, and we love their three daughters, S-l, K-m, and A-r. Matter of fact, A-r loves Tim so much, I tease Tim and tell him he has a little girlfriend ;).

S-l is their oldest child, at 6. She’s allowed to stay up a little bit later than her younger siblings, and yesterday evening she told me she wanted to read to me. The book was about going to the grocery store, and the first thing I noticed was that all the pages rhymed….except for the page with potatoes and tomatoes.

Now, in American English, we would pronounce them alike. Puh-tay-to, tah-may-to. But in British English, it’s different. Potato is still puh-tay-to, but tomato is pronounced tah-mah-to. They don’t rhyme. And makes the children’s book confusing as a result since it’s the one pair of words that don’t rhyme! Even S-l pointed out that it didn’t rhyme!

And then the rest of the adults pointed out how weird it was that in British English, they don’t say poh-tah-to….which of course, made everyone sing a verse of that silly song.

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1 Comment so far

  1. miss m June 11th, 2011 20:51

    Ok, that’s funny and cute. 🙂

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