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Potato, Potato

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“Potato, potato” (po-tay-to, po-tah-to)

Genre: modern proverb/idiom

Context/Source: An early childhood memory signified by his (26 year old man) initial confusion with the meaning of the sentiment. 

Analysis: The simplicity of this two-word sentiment confounds it’s meaning. Hearing it for the first time as a young child, the source wondered if there were two names for the same vegetable, or two vegetables with the same name. Over the course of a few weeks he speculated that maybe it was various regional accents that caused the discrepancy in pronunciation, or maybe there was no single way to pronounce it. The more you think about it… potato potato, tomato, tomato, the more the meaning is obscured, the less distinguishable the words become. It shows there’s more than one way for individuals to arrive at the same idea. Though playful, it embodies that, despite language and culture, a potato is a potatoe. 

After further research, I found the idiom seems to be derived from the song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, written for the film Shall We Dance, released in 1937.

Metaphorical saying for “Doing Bad”

  1. “Screwed the Pooch”
  2. I did an interview with a classmate in my Anthropology class, with an emphasis surrounding folklore and he revealed to me a saying he heard from a friend in high school. “My buddy in high school, this guy I know Jake Harris he really fumbled some science work, something in this class we had together and he’s like man… I really screwed the pooch and I thought that was hilarious. He’s from Simsbury, Connecticut. And I don’t know where he got that or anything, but I heard that and thought it was pretty funny. [How old were you?] At the time, we had to be freshman or sophomores in high school, 15 or 16. ”
  3. My interpretation of this metaphorical saying is that it is simply comedic. I have heard this before, I think I’ve even heard in a movie in the 2000s. It is often times, in my view at least, something that would be said in a stereo typical high school movie. Additionally, from my interpretation and knowledge of this saying it means to mess up something or make an embarrassing mistake of some sort. Moreover, I believe this saying has been around for quite sometime now, but I have not been around many people who say it, so there could be an Northeastern thing.

No Te hagas Que la Virgen Te Habla

Transliteration: Do not youtself make that the Virgin (Mary) is calling you

Translation: Don’t act dumb because the virgin is calling you

Explanation/ Context: My mom would often say this to my sisters and I, rhetorically when she was driving and someone upset her on the road. “Unas veces me enojaba tanto con los carros cuando las iba a dejar a la escuela… Lo escuché primero en México cuando era niña. No se de donde se viene.” After doing some digging (asking family members to translate), the saying is mostly applied to people who pretend to act dumb or as if they don’t know what’s going on.


Translation: “sometimes I would get so mad with the cars when I went to drop [you and your sisters] off at school… I heard it first in Mexico when I was a girl. I don’t know where it comes from though.

“Never strike the last match,” 

“Never strike the last match,” 

Willie: O-o-okay, here’s another one that came from, um…Vietnam, it’s “never strike the last match.”

Me: What’s that one mean? 

Willie: Okay, that means if you have one match left in a book, don’t strike it. Cause people in Vietnam, what- what used to happen is, they used to smoke, right? 

Me: Uh-huh.

Willie: And it would be nighttime, and they’re in the jungle, and they light a match, and then people know where they are, so people start shooting where the match is.

Me: Ohhh. 

Willie: So there’s a saying, don’t light the last match…or, don’t strike the last match…They say it’s bad luck.

My dad heard this from a few different neighbors growing up, ones that had served or were close to people that had served in the U.S. army during the Vietnam War. In the context of war, it was rather literal in its meaning, given that revealing your location could very easily get you killed; but in regular life it would be used as a way of saying don’t ruin your plans before they unfold. I couldn’t find anything online about this phrase, but the closest thing I could find was the saying “three on a match,” which means if three soldiers light their cigarettes on the same match, one of the three of them would die. Considering the meanings are pretty different, I wouldn’t say they’re the same saying with different words, but they probably evolved from one or the other.

“God don’t like ugly, and he’s not too fond of pretty, either,”

“God don’t like ugly, and he’s not too fond of pretty, either,”

Willie: Here- here- here’s another one. God don’t like ugly, and he’s not too fond of pretty, either.

Me: What’s that mean?

Willie: Okay, God doesn’t like people that do bad things, um…and he’s not too fond of people that wanna be perfect, or picture perfect.

My dad heard this from a couple of different places growing up, most namely his grandmother, in preachers’ sermons, and from the little old ladies after church service. It means God isn’t fond of people who are bad and sin often, but he also isn’t fond of people who try to be perfect. Honestly, I’m a big fan of this saying in particular, even though I’ve never personally heard it in context. In my opinion, sometimes, people can misunderstand what their religion asks of them in terms of morals, and try too hard to be the perfect person. Oftentimes, that can be more detrimental.