This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your

stories, send them to our American Stories.com.

And we love telling stories about the past.

Our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.

His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube.

The History Guy has also heard here

at our American Stories.

The Great Vowel Shift was the single greatest change in the history of the English language

and has now become the official language in over 75 countries.

As the title the Great Vowel Shift implies, this shifted the pronunciation of vowels from

a softer to a harder sound.

Here's the history guy with the story of the great vowel shift and the making of modern

English.

Recently we did an episode on Kachap, and of course today Kachap is mostly made from

tomatoes, and that led a viewer to send me a question about the English pronunciation of the word

tomato and asked me well which one is correct.

And that is a popular question because of a song written by George and Ira Gershwin for the

1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, Shall We Dance?

With the lyrics, You say tomato and I say tomato, you say potato and I say potato,

let's call the whole thing off.

And the song says a lot of things about class and culture, but the real point of the song

...