"potayto, potahto" meaning in English

See potayto, potahto in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

IPA: /ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/
Etymology: Supposedly uses the American English and British English pronunciations of the word potato, by analogy of tomato (see tomayto, tomahto). Unlike tomato, only the former pronunciation is used in either American or British English. Allusion to George Gershwin's song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off": "You like potato (/ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ/) and I like potato (/ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/)". Etymology templates: {{m|en|potato}} potato, {{m|en|tomato}} tomato, {{m|en|tomayto, tomahto}} tomayto, tomahto Head templates: {{head|en|interjection|head=potayto, potahto}} potayto, potahto
  1. (informal) That is a distinction without a difference. Wikipedia link: George Gershwin, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off Tags: informal Synonyms: same difference, tomayto, tomahto

Download JSON data for potayto, potahto meaning in English (3.4kB)

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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "potato"
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      "expansion": "potato",
      "name": "m"
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "tomato"
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      "expansion": "tomato",
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "tomayto, tomahto"
      },
      "expansion": "tomayto, tomahto",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Supposedly uses the American English and British English pronunciations of the word potato, by analogy of tomato (see tomayto, tomahto). Unlike tomato, only the former pronunciation is used in either American or British English. Allusion to George Gershwin's song \"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off\": \"You like potato (/ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ/) and I like potato (/ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/)\".",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "interjection",
        "head": "potayto, potahto"
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      "expansion": "potayto, potahto",
      "name": "head"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001 August 31, Robert Hickey, “Re: Vegetarian (fruitarian?) all raw food diet - Ca-AEP”, in alt.support.mult-sclerosis (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"He says he has never had a **remission**. You thought he was being smug about 'lack of relapse(s)'.\"\nI think it's more like \"potato - potahto.\" No remission to me says unchanging and, hence, no relapse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 2, Dave Witzel, “Re: beers in NYC”, in alt.beer (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"Who's whining, pissant? I'm berating!\"\nPotato, potahto.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Elaine Cunningham, Shadows In The Darkness, Tor/Forge, page 49",
          "text": "What he liked to call helpful, however, was more like Gwen's idea of controlling and manipulative. Potayto, potahto, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 October 7, David Rush, “Re: Nested Lambda function gives error in common lisp, guile, emacs lisp but works in scheme. Why?”, in comp.lang.scheme (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"In Common Lisp (and presumably Emacs Lisp), functions are as first-class as in Scheme and elsewhere. You just have to do a bit extra to use them as first-class values, that's all.\"\nPotayto, potahto. That 'bit extra' is what makes them 'not first-class denotable' in my book.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "That is a distinction without a difference."
      ],
      "id": "en-potayto,_potahto-en-intj-1-VNn9ng",
      "links": [
        [
          "distinction without a difference",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) That is a distinction without a difference."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "same difference"
        },
        {
          "word": "tomayto, tomahto"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Gershwin",
        "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "potayto, potahto"
}
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      "expansion": "potato",
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "tomato"
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        "2": "tomayto, tomahto"
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      "expansion": "tomayto, tomahto",
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  "etymology_text": "Supposedly uses the American English and British English pronunciations of the word potato, by analogy of tomato (see tomayto, tomahto). Unlike tomato, only the former pronunciation is used in either American or British English. Allusion to George Gershwin's song \"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off\": \"You like potato (/ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ/) and I like potato (/ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/)\".",
  "head_templates": [
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        "English informal terms",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English pronunciation spellings",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001 August 31, Robert Hickey, “Re: Vegetarian (fruitarian?) all raw food diet - Ca-AEP”, in alt.support.mult-sclerosis (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"He says he has never had a **remission**. You thought he was being smug about 'lack of relapse(s)'.\"\nI think it's more like \"potato - potahto.\" No remission to me says unchanging and, hence, no relapse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 July 2, Dave Witzel, “Re: beers in NYC”, in alt.beer (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"Who's whining, pissant? I'm berating!\"\nPotato, potahto.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Elaine Cunningham, Shadows In The Darkness, Tor/Forge, page 49",
          "text": "What he liked to call helpful, however, was more like Gwen's idea of controlling and manipulative. Potayto, potahto, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 October 7, David Rush, “Re: Nested Lambda function gives error in common lisp, guile, emacs lisp but works in scheme. Why?”, in comp.lang.scheme (Usenet)",
          "text": "\"In Common Lisp (and presumably Emacs Lisp), functions are as first-class as in Scheme and elsewhere. You just have to do a bit extra to use them as first-class values, that's all.\"\nPotayto, potahto. That 'bit extra' is what makes them 'not first-class denotable' in my book.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "That is a distinction without a difference."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "distinction without a difference",
          "distinction without a difference"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) That is a distinction without a difference."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Gershwin",
        "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"
      ]
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  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌpəˈteɪtoʊ ˌpəˈtɑːtoʊ/"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "same difference"
    },
    {
      "word": "tomayto, tomahto"
    }
  ],
  "word": "potayto, potahto"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.