Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

The song is most famous for its "You like to-may-to {{IPAc-en|t|ə|ˈ|m|eɪ|t|ə}} / And I like to-mah-to {{IPAc-en|t|ə|ˈ|m|ɑː|t|ə}}" and other verses comparing British and American English pronunciations of tomato and other words.

In addition to being regional, the differences in pronunciation serve more specifically to identify class differences. At the time, typical American pronunciations were considered less "refined" by the upper-class, and there was a specific emphasis on the "broader" a sound.{{cite book | title=Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from our Lively and Splendid Past | url=https://archive.org/details/listeningtoameri00flex | url-access=registration | page=[https://archive.org/details/listeningtoameri00flex/page/511 511] | year=1982 | publisher=Simon and Schuster | author=Flexner, Stuart Berg| isbn=9780671248956 }} This class distinction with respect to pronunciation has been retained in caricatures, especially in the theater, where the longer a pronunciation is most strongly associated with the word darling.{{cite book | title=A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address | url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofepit0000dunk | url-access=registration | author=Dunkling, Leslie | year=1990 | publisher=Routledge | page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofepit0000dunk/page/86 86]| isbn=9780415007610 }}{{relevance inline|date=April 2025}}

• Fred Astaire with Johnny Green & His Orchestra (1937){{cite web |url=http://www.america.net/~davdmock/astaire.htm |title=Astaire on 78 |publisher=America.net |access-date=2011-10-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927172847/http://www.america.net/~davdmock/astaire.htm |archive-date=2011-09-27 }}
• Shep Fields and his Riplling Rhythm Orchestra with vocalist Bobby Goday (1937) [https://archive.org/details/78_lets-call-the-whole-thing-off_shep-fields-and-his-rippling-rhythm-orchestra-bobby_gbia0152256b Shep Fields performs "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off], Archive.org''
• Billie Holiday – on Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia 1933–1944 (1937), or on The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 4 (1937){{cite web |last=Yanow |first=Scott |title=The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol. 4 (1937) – Review |website=AllMusic |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-quintessential-billie-holiday-vol-4-1937-mw0000196468#review |author-link=Scott Yanow}}
• Sam Cooke – Tribute to the Lady (1959)
• Ella Fitzgerald – on Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959),{{cite web |url=http://ellafitzgerald.altervista.org/discog_02.htm |title=Ella Fitzgerald Discography – Part 2 – The Verve Years part 1 |publisher=Ellafitzgerald.altervista.org |access-date=2011-10-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929134926/http://ellafitzgerald.altervista.org/discog_02.htm |archive-date=2011-09-29 }} on the 1983 Pablo release Nice Work If You Can Get It, and in a 1957 duet with Louis Armstrong on Ella and Louis Again.
• Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney recorded the song for their radio show in 1960{{cite web|title=A Bing Crosby Discography|url= http://www.bingmagazine.co.uk/bingmagazine/CBS.html|website=BING magazine|publisher=International Club Crosby|access-date=December 8, 2017}} and it was subsequently released on the CD Bing & Rosie - The Crosby-Clooney Radio Sessions (2010).{{cite web|title=Bing & Rosie: The Crosby-Clooney Radio Sessions|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/bing-rosie-the-crosby-clooney-radio-sessions-mw0002076504|website=AllMusic|access-date=December 8, 2017}}
• Harry Connick Jr. for the soundtrack for When Harry Met Sally (1989)
• Uri Caine – Rhapsody in Blue (2013)
• Willie Nelson with Cyndi Lauper on Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016)

• The song has been re-used in filmmaking and television production, most notably in When Harry Met Sally... – where it is performed by Louis Armstrong – and The Simpsons.
• In the February 18, 1970, Anne Bancroft television special, "Annie: The Women in the Life of a Man," Bancroft appears in a comedy sketch with David Susskind in which she plays a hapless singer in an audition who sings the song from sheet music, cluelessly ignoring the different pronunciation of to-may-to and to-mah-to, etc.{{cite web|title=Obscure Videos: '70s Specials|website=Broadway.com|url=https://www.broadway.com/buzz/10903/obscure-videos-70s-specials/|access-date=November 13, 2018}} Ira Gershwin relates a similar incident in his 1959 book.{{cite book | last=Gershwin | first=Ira | title=Lyrics on Several Occasions | edition=First | location=New York | publisher=Knopf | year=1959 | oclc=538209}} An essentially similar sketch was performed by comedians John Bird and John Fortune in the 1976 Amnesty International benefit concert A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick).
• The tune was also featured in the 2012 Broadway Musical Nice Work If You Can Get It.
• In the 2021 film Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Venom sings the song while it is playing on the radio.
• In The Muppet Show episode #350, Sylvester Stallone sings a modified version of the song while dressed as a Roman gladiator and battling a dancing lion.

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book | last=Furia | first=Philip | title=Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist | url=https://archive.org/details/iragershwinartof0000furi | url-access=registration | edition=First | location=New York | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1996 | isbn=0-19-508299-0 }}
• {{cite book | last=Rosenberg | first=Deena Ruth | title=Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin | publisher=University of Michigan Press | year=1991 | isbn=978-0-472-08469-2 }}

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{{Fred Astaire}}

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Category:1937 songs

Category:1937 singles

Category:Songs written for films

Category:Songs with music by George Gershwin

Category:Songs with lyrics by Ira Gershwin

Category:Male–female vocal duets

Category:Fred Astaire songs

Category:Louis Armstrong songs