I'm just curious. This question started bugging me while I was doing my homework.

More like puh-tay-to unless I'm really paying attention then po-tay-to...

It's a tater!

PJ

If you really want to avoid all confusion, just call it an aardappel .

Saskia (who's feeling mightily silly at the moment)

The fact that I grew up with parents with strong Oklahoman accents shows in that word. I actually pronounce it puh-TAY-tuh unless I'm consciously thinking about it, which is true of most multi-syllabic words ending in a long o sound (pillow, fellow, tomato, Amarillo). My kids razz me mercilessly for that.

Or tatties. As in mince and tatties or tatties and neeps (turnips).

Although, I have to admit that, despite being Scottish, I've never said tatties.

LabRat

In Idaho, they're called "spuds".

I say that, too. Once in awhile I say, "Tater."

Well, am I lucky I'm born German - we don't have half a dozen different ways of pronouncing a word, we have half a dozen names for a thing.

Okay, finally looked it up. According to Wikipedia, I found twenty names for potatoes, all of them of different roots, many of them in a number of different regional variants (spelling, pronunciation). Isn't English simple?

Mine's more like puh-tae-to.

On a side note, how do y'all pronounce hemorrhoid? In TX, (or at least Houston) we pronounce it Hem-or-oid but some other FOLCS thought that was the funniest thing ever. Seriously though! Even doctors call them hem-or-oids.

You know, Steph, I was just about to comment that wow, you say potato the same way I do, but you can't say hemorrhoid correctly to save your life!

I'm not crazy! You heard both pronunciations online, remember? Just cause it was not "Webster's Dictionary" that pronounced it that way. Dictionary.com is legit too! Plus, Websters is liberal so there.

I say puh-TAY-toe usually, but sometimes I say poe-tay-toe

Poe-tay-toes. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew... Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

I think, I'm another puh-tae-to gal. Prefer to call them McDonalds fries.

Mona

Actually,it's usually batata (Buh-tah-tah) :p

Po-tay-to

Love the Sam Gamgee reference, Karen. Was just reading that the other day.

Tay-ter.

There. That avoids all those annoying polls, doesn't it?