tomayto, tomahto

1 9.6

A phrase people use to say two things are the same or not important

idiom
/təˈmeɪtoʊ təˈmɑːtoʊ/

Informal

: tomate, tomáte

Whether we call it a résumé or a CV, it's just tomayto, tomahto.

Examples

You say tomahto, I say tomayto.
She insists on calling it 'advertisement' while he says 'advert', but really—tomayto, tomahto.
They kept arguing over details, but to everyone else it was tomayto, tomahto.
It's just a matter of tomayto, tomahto.
She insists on calling it 'advertisement' while he says 'advert', but really—tomayto, tomahto.
Whether we call it a résumé or a CV, it's just tomayto, tomahto.
They kept debating the small differences, but to us, it was just tomayto, tomahto.

Synonyms

same difference

vstomayto, tomahto

Informal

8 6.0

A phrase people use to say two things do not matter

suggests indifference about small differences rather than plainly asserting sameness

How Important

huge difference

56 2.7

minor

497 2.4

tomayto, tomahto

Informal

1 9.6

Surface Forms

tomayto main

tomahto main

Morphology

tomayto, + tomahto

The phrase is a playful pairing of pronunciation variants ('tomayto'/'tomahto') rather than compositional lexical items, and its conventional meaning ('no real difference') is pragmatic and idiomatic rather than derivable from the parts. A B1 learner who knows 'tomato' or the component sounds would not reliably infer the expression's idiomatic sense, so it functions as an opaque idiom.

Etymology

Tomayto, tomahto comes from the image of two people saying the same vegetable in different ways, tomayto or tomahto, but meaning the same thing. Because the two ways to say it do not change what you mean, the phrase is used to say 'the difference is unimportant'.