How Do You Pronounce “Potato?”

Two and a half pound potatoes in Limestone, 1900.

“Tell the girl next to you what your father does for a living,” the older student demanded.

It was freshmen initiation week at college in Rhode Island. My first day. Each of us girls had to pair up with another and pretend we were friends.

I looked at the teenager sitting cross-legged beside me. She had long, wavy hair and olive skin and did not look like she came from Maine.

I took a deep breath. “My dad is a ba-DAY-da farmer.”

“A what?” She leaned closer.

“A BA-DAY-DA FARRM-ERR.”

“I’m sah-ry,” she drawled. “Repeat that, please.”

What was wrong with her. Or was it me? I tried again. Very slowly. “A po-ta-to farmer.”

“Oh! My dad’s a law-stah fishahman.”

“A what?'“

“LAWWW-STAHHH fishahman.”

She was from Mahtha’s Vineyahd. Ocean. Fish. Lobster. I finally got it.

It shocked me to learn that I had been saying potato wrong all those years. But in actuality, that is the way it’s pronounced in Aroostook County, Maine, the largest county east of the Mississippi that hugs the top third of the state and borders New Brunswick to the north and east, and Quebec to the west.

The County is known for its tasty potatoes, and potato crops have been grown there since the early 1800s.

When I go back to the homeland, I still hear the locals say potato the way I heard my parents say it, and my grandparents before them. I’ve also heard some Canadians pronounce potato the same way in New Brunswick and Quebec. But others from those provinces say it “correctly.”

I’ve listened to Scottish natives, Irish, English, French, and Native American. All say “potato” differently than us. I don’t know why we say badayda.

Early settlers in northeastern Maine, no matter where they were from, discovered that the soil was loamy and full of limestone—two things that potato plants like. Cool temperatures and adequate rainfall made growing potatoes in the virgin soil ideal. And they grew some big tubers, like early farms in the town of Limestone, as shown in the above photograph. In the mid-1900s, Limestone actually grew more potatoes than any other town in the world.

Since potatoes have been such a special part of our culture, I suppose that’s a good enough reason as any to pronounce “potato” differently—never mind if anyone else can understand it!