One of the few things St. Louisans and Kansas Citians agree on is that the freakin’ name of the state is pronounced Mizz-oor-ee (or possibly Mizz-ooh-ree).
Personally, I blame it all on our senior Senator, Christopher “Kit” Bond, who has been in public life for more than 30 years. He comes from the town of Mexico (pronounced Mexico, smart alec!) in the central part of the state, and has always pronounced it “Missourah.”
Puak the caw in the yawd.
For the record, my comment early in this thread was based on a few people I’d known and two or three Missourian authors I’d read – and as it happens, all were from the southern part of the state. Hence my assumption (obviously erroneous) that the -uh/-ah ending was the proper way, as defined by native speakers, to render the name. I stand corrected.
As I’m visualizing this, the -uh ending is prevalent south of an arc beginning a bit south of Kansas City and St. Louis and convex to cover much of the I-70 corridor, while the -ee ending is common in the two metropolitan areas and north of that arc. Is that about accurate?
Might be further south than 1-70, or just spotty on the small towns. I spent more than a few years in Columbia and there-abouts, and never heard it pronounced that way there either. Of course my Girlfriend is from Rolla, Mo, and she doesn’t pronounce it that way. (though her parents are from the KC area if I do remember correctly, so that may be it)
How do N Yorkers say it? Pawk the caw in the yawd?
I’d agree that it’s you that has a problem
I grew up just outside St. Louis and the only people I ever heard pronounce it Missour"ee" were people from Illinois (silent s) and elsewhere (a few New Joisey and Noo Yawk transplants come to mind).
Northern Rednecks?
Funny, just asked my two roommates, both of which are from St. Charles, and they say they have never heard people say Missour"ah" and they themselves say Missour"ee.
For something that is “accepted” and “Most people in missouri say it that way” there sure are a lot of native Missourians that have never even heard it.
If it was “most” or “accepted” I would have heard it at least once, my roommates would have heard of it. None of us live with our heads in the sand, all of us are very social people and interact with a wide variety of people, so it’s not a lack of mingling with enough people. Five years in college and 25 additional years in the state, I think I would know it if it was accepted or “most” people said it that way.
But think what you want.
The first time I heard the Missoura pronunciation was in the old New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn TV show back in 1968 when I was just a wee bairn. It was a combination of live action and animation, and had no connection whatever with the works of Mark Twain except for the names of the characters and “I’m from Hannibal, Missoura.”
I think I get what you meant-- Malden is about the same latitude as the Kentucky-Tennessee border as well as the Missouri-Arkansas border west of the Bootheel. But that isn’t what the Mason-Dixon Line is. It’s mostly the border at 39° 43´ N between Pennsylvania and Maryland (also between Delaware and Maryland, and part of the border between Pennsylvania and West Virginia). It was the furthest east border dividing the slave states from the free states, and came to be emblematic of the entire division of the nation over slavery–but it wasn’t the name for all such state borders. Wikipedia manages to confuse the matter–
I might point out that only people from the City (you don’t ask which one) are from Noo Yawk. As a native Upstater, I was from a properly palatalized New and a York with an R distinctly audible. We might have our own odd collection of improbably sounded toponyms, but the state name was Standard American.
Le sigh…I was having a brainfart. My husband did NOT go to Mizzou. For some reason I saw “Mizzou” and thought of the middle school he went to. No idea why.
I had forgotten the name, so I just called him. He went to MICDS, and he said to tell you that he wasn’t a rich kid 
In my experience, the only people I’ve heard say Missour-uh in St. Louis are older people - like people around my grandparents’ age. But that’s only me.
Cincinnatuh and Miamuh Valley (for the Dayton are) are the old-timey local pronunciations.
From Charles Harrington Elster, The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations (1999):
Elster then discusses at some length (it’s one of his longest entries) the history of the debate. The jist is that it’s mostly a Northern-Southern distinction, meaning from which part of the country the speaker’s forbears came. In this sense, “uh” is the older pronunciation, as most of the original settlers were from Virginia and Kentucky. But, it has long since been overtaken by “ee,” which as noted Elster concludes is now the majority pronunciation.
FWIW, my great-grandpa had a farm in Eureka (near St. Louis, for those of you not from Missouri). He, grandma and everyone else on that side o’ the family used “uh.” My mother still does.
Heh.
Thanks to this thread, I just noticed that our plant manager – who’s from Festus – is a Missourahian. This shibboleth may well replace “warsh” and “fahrty-fahr” in registering on my annoyance meter.
Thanks ever so much.