Tomato, Tomorrow

Have you ever noticed that the word "tomorrow" has three O's, and yet, each one is pronounced differently?

Two. Mar. Oh.

Or, possibly:

Two. More. Ohh.

What’s going on here?

Old English

Two words in Old English make up “tomorrow” (I’m simplifying a bit here, but not much): “to” and “morrow.”

“To” is the same word, and it means basically the same in Old English. “Morrow” wasn’t originally used, but instead, “morgen” or “morwen” were. “The morning to come” or “the next day” was the intended meaning.

By the Middle English period, the word had shifted to forms like "to-morwe" or "to-morow," already getting closer to our current "tomorrow." Why? The hard “G” sound is tough to say, and this is pretty much always the way language evolves: toward the lazy.