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.[8] 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.[9][relevant?]
Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney recorded the song for their radio show in 1960[14] and it was subsequently released on the CD Bing & Rosie - The Crosby-Clooney Radio Sessions (2010).[15]
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.[16] Ira Gershwin relates a similar incident in his 1959 book.[17] 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).
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.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
