you say tomato, I say tomato

A common phrase used to stress someone's understanding and accepting of a minor disagreement they have with the person they are speaking with. Providing two different pronounciations of the word 'tomato' (the first one with a hard 'a', the second with a soft 'a') represents the knowledge that many things can work in more than one way. The fact that one would probably scoff at person who actually pronounced it the second way is of little importance. Its basically an amiable thing to hear, similar to "hey, lets just agree to disagree" or "to each their own."

It is also one of those rare phrases that lose all meaning completely when typed and read rather than spoken and heard.

"I say toh-mah-toh, you say toh-may-toh, you say poh-tah-to, I say poh-tay-toh..."

There may be more to the song, but I never heard it. I remember my Gran repeating this rhyme to me when I was around seven years old, when my sister and I were visiting her flat in Glasgow. Actually, up until now (when I had thought about it) I had had the idea that the song was about the differences between the US-ian and the British way of speaking. I have no idea whether or not someone with a US accent would pronounce 'tomato' and 'potato' as in the song.

Deeahblita informs me that the lyrics are actually from an old Gershwin song, Let's Call The Whole Thing Off, sung by Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers.