diff --git a/html2text/__init__.py b/html2text/__init__.py
index 6b281ca..1921a24 100644
--- a/html2text/__init__.py
+++ b/html2text/__init__.py
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ def __init__(
         self.tag_callback = None
         self.open_quote = config.OPEN_QUOTE  # covered in cli
         self.close_quote = config.CLOSE_QUOTE  # covered in cli
+        self.ignore_sup_sub = config.IGNORE_SUP_SUB  # covered in cli
 
         if out is None:
             self.out = self.outtextf
@@ -716,7 +717,7 @@ def link_url(self: HTML2Text, link: str, title: str = "") -> None:
                     self.out("\n[/code]")
             self.p()
 
-        if tag in ["sup", "sub"]:
+        if not self.ignore_sup_sub and tag in ["sup", "sub"]:
             if start:
                 self.o("<{}>".format(tag))
             else:
diff --git a/html2text/cli.py b/html2text/cli.py
index d0c62c9..2708c40 100644
--- a/html2text/cli.py
+++ b/html2text/cli.py
@@ -264,6 +264,12 @@ class bcolors:
     )
     p.add_argument("filename", nargs="?")
     p.add_argument("encoding", nargs="?", default="utf-8")
+    p.add_argument(
+        "--ignore-sup-sub",
+        dest="ignore_sup_sub",
+        default=config.IGNORE_SUP_SUB,
+        help="Ignore the sup and sub tags",
+    )
     args = p.parse_args()
 
     if args.filename and args.filename != "-":
diff --git a/html2text/config.py b/html2text/config.py
index 88d3f91..e4979a9 100644
--- a/html2text/config.py
+++ b/html2text/config.py
@@ -163,3 +163,6 @@
 # Use double quotation marks when converting the <q> tag.
 OPEN_QUOTE = '"'
 CLOSE_QUOTE = '"'
+
+# Ignore the sup and sub tags
+IGNORE_SUP_SUB = True