Tomatos or Tomatoes – Which is the Correct Plural?

Tomatos or tomatoes? What should more than one tomato be called? You may sometimes find it not so easy to remember how to spell some words because pluralization in English can at times be complicated. But you can still find an easy way to remember how to spell most of these words.

Tomatoes are one delicious fruit that contains a good amount of essential nutrients for human development. It is often believed that tomato is a type of vegetable. But technically speaking, it is a fruit that is derived from the tomato plant.

Most people often get the spelling of the delicious red food that goes by the name tomato wrong, especially when it comes to the plural spellings. When it comes to the spelling of some words in English, there are different rules to be followed, especially when it has to do with the construction of plural words.

In this post, we will compare tomatos and tomatoes and find out which is the correct spelling. So, let’s delve into this.

Some Info About Tomato – Tomatos or Tomatoes

The big, round, pulpy, tomato berry is from the genus Solanum of the nightshade family. There are more than ten thousand tomato varieties you can find.

The tomato is mostly red. However, some varieties can be yellow, orange, pink, black, green, or purple. But what we mostly see is usually red tomatoes.

If you wish to see or find a multiple-color variety of tomato, you can just head to your local farm shop or greengrocer.

As we mentioned earlier, tomato is a type of fruit but sometimes it can be regarded as a type of vegetable. So, it is an edible fruit that can be eaten raw and integrated into foods like salads, or you can cook them in different meals.

This tomato fruit is loaded with many great nutritional benefits. This includes being a great source of vitamin C, folate, potassium, and vitamin K. They are also rich in antioxidants that can help get rid of toxins.

This great-tasting fruit is also rich in lycopene which is available to us naturally. This lycopene is a very strong antioxidant that is crucial for the health of the prostate gland that is found in men. Also, some reports have claimed that lycopene can minimize and protect against certain types of cancer.

Tomatos or Tomatoes: Which is the Correct Plural Form?

It’s general knowledge to always add –s to noun words when you’re referring to the word in the plural. However, this may not be the case for some words.

Generally, when it comes to spelling nouns in English words that end with –o, the plural form of the word often ends with –s added to the words. For example, we have words like -zoos, patios, radios, studios, embryos, avocados, tacos, videos, and so on that end with –s. However, this is not the case for words like a tomato that ends with –s.

Some people usually make the mistake of adding –s to tomato when it comes to using tomato in the plural. But this is wrong. This is mostly because the singular word for ‘tomato’ doesn’t contain –e at the end of the word. So, it can be understandable when some people get the plural spelling wrong by just adding –s to the end of the word.

However, the ideal or correct way of spelling tomato in the plural form is to add –es. Hence, the correct spelling for the plural of tomato is tomatoes.

Other words ending with –o, just like a tomato, also fall into this same category of adding –es to form plural words. Below is a list of other words apart from tomato that also ends with –o that needs –us to be added to the end of their words to form the plural word:

• Potatoes
• Heroes
• Torpedoes
• Mosquitoes
• Echoes
• Vetoes
• Buffaloes

Tomato or Tomatoe: Which is the Correct Singular Form?

It’s understandable if some people get the spelling of tomato confused. This is why we need to know what the right spelling is.

The correct singular spelling is “tomato.” The singular form or spelling of tomato doesn’t require the addition of ‘e’ to it.

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Health Benefits of Tomatoes – Tomatos or Tomatoes

Tomatoes are wonderful food that can offer us great nutritional benefits that can aid in proper body functioning. Some of these benefits include:

• Tomatoes are a wonderful source of vitamin C and vitamin K. It is also rich in potassium and folate (or vitamin B9).
• Tomato can be beneficial to your blood pressure control and it can serve as a protection against heart disease. So, regular consumption of tomatoes can help reduce or protect against heart disease; which includes heart attacks and strokes.
• They are a great source of fiber that can provide around 1.5 grams per average-sized tomato.
• These fruits are great antioxidants that can help flush out toxic radicals from your system.
• The lycopene found in tomatoes can help reduce the risk of cancer as well as give some protection against cancer.
• Your skin can also benefit from tomato use. For instance, food that is based on tomatoes is rich in lycopene as well as other plant compounds that may protect against sunburn. Some studies have even shown that individuals that consume 1.3 ounces (i.e. 40 grams) of tomato paste get about 16 grams of lycopene. Now, when this is combined with olive oil every day for 10 weeks, it can cause 40% fewer sunburns.

Nutritional Value of Tomatoes

You may be wondering what the nutritional value is when it comes to tomatoes. Let’s take a closer look. Every 100g of tomatoes contains the following:

• calories: 18
• fat: less than 1g
• cholesterol: 0mg
• sodium: 5mg
• carbohydrates: 3.9g
• fiber: 1.2g
• protein: less than 1g

Popular Varieties of Tomatoes

There are hundreds of varieties of tomatoes; big and small, ranging in color and flavor. But some varieties are more popular than others. Let’s take a closer look.

• Roma Tomatoes. You may know Roma tomatoes better than plum tomatoes. These types of tomatoes are usually somewhere between small and medium in size. They’re usually sweet, plump, and flavorful. Perfect for soups and salads.
• Cherry Tomatoes. They’re small tomatoes that tend to explode with flavor as you eat them. I find that these tomatoes work well as a snack, or in sauces.
• Beefsteak Tomatoes. These are large and plump in size. These work great for when you’re looking for tomato slices to add to your burgers. They’re often mild in flavor, but very juicy.
• Heirloom Tomatoes. These tomatoes aren’t typically uniform, coming in a selection of sizes and colors. These tomatoes are usually sweet and rich in flavor. These tomatoes work well in any dish and are known as the “purest” tomatoes.
• Vine Tomatoes. As the name suggests, they grow on the vine and are then sold that way. This means that they’ll be as fresh as possible when you pick them off the vine. They’re versatile and can be used in many dishes.
• Green Tomatoes. Green tomatoes can either be ripened or unripened; depending on the variety. Green tomatoes are surprisingly common in the US. They have a different taste from usual tomatoes and they can even be quite sour. They’re typically firm, but not as juicy as other varieties.
• Grape Tomatoes. These are the smallest cherries. They aren’t particularly juicy, but because of their size, you may not want to use them in cooking and they may be best suited as a snack.

Tomatoes Tomatos Saying

You may have weird the expression, “tomato, tomahto”, or, “potayto, potahto”; both of which are used interchangeably. It simply means that you have differences, but you’ll have to agree to disagree.

As well as this, it was also made famous in a popular song by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, called Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off. The lyrics are, “you like potayto, I like potahto, you like tomayto, and I like tomahto, potayto, potahto, tomayto, tomahto, let’s call the whole thing off”. This is essentially saying that we have our differences, but let’s settle this now and stop.

It is also a cultural difference. British people tend to see “tomahto”, whereas Americans tend to say “tomayto”. Either way is correct!

Do You Say: Some Tomato or Some Tomatoes?

If you have more than one tomato, you should say some tomatoes, rather than some tomato. Some tomato does not make grammatical sense and should not be used when you have more than one tomato.

Tomato Plural Dictionary – What Does the Dictionary Say?

If you take a look at dictionary.com, tomato is described as a noun, and the plural for a tomato is to·ma·toes.

Final Say – Tomatos or Tomatoes

Even though there may be different ways of tomato pronunciations, the right spelling must be followed. So, when it comes to spelling tomato, there is only one way to spell this word. The word tomato is often misspelled and this is common when it comes to their plural spellings.  But ‘tomato’ is the correct singular spelling, while ‘tomatoes’ is the correct plural spelling.

Do you know of any other words that end in -o, that are then added with an -es plural? If so, please feel free to let us know in the comments below. And remember, sharing is caring! 

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