# Vote here: Is it prounounced 'Missour--EE' or 'Missour-UH'? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 22, 2000, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932 "2000-12-22T23:39:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SoMoMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@SoMoMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoMoMom)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932/41 "2000-12-29T17:48:00Z")
Well, growing up in St. Charles County, the only person I ever heard say Missour-uh was my 4-6th grade principal. He was from the Bootheel. Then I grew up and went to college in southwest Missouri and the only people that said Missour-ee were transplants from St. Louis. (Same with saying “soda” instead of “pop”.) Believe it or not, this was a subject of discussion at more than one party I attended, and **I** didn’t start the discussion. I haven’t really paid attention to how they say it around here in KC. Dey all talk funny to me anyways. 😉 (St. Louisans add “s” when it isn’t necessary a lot sometimes while warshing deir hands at the zink. And I can remember scraping up enough corders to take my car to the car warsh. Youz guys know what I’m talking about, right? But, dammit, don’t ever call it Saint Louie!) ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932/42 "2000-12-29T18:15:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SoMoMom \* > \*\*😉 (St. Louisans add “s” when it isn’t necessary a lot sometimes while warshing deir hands at the zink. And I can remember scraping up enough corders to take my car to the car warsh. Youz guys know what I’m talking about, right? But, dammit, don’t ever call it Saint Louie!) \*\* Actually, I’ve never heard that accent, but I’ve heard many people talk about it. (ok, I’ve heard people add the ‘r’ in words like wash, but not that often.) I guess that’s the difference between growing up in the city and the county. I agree whole-heartedly with that last statement though. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932/43 "2000-12-29T18:24:56Z")
I love the Internet. [http://mosl.sos.state.mo.us/rec-man/archives/reference/faq/slogan.html](http://mosl.sos.state.mo.us/rec-man/archives/reference/faq/slogan.html) > [@](#): > > Missouri State Archives > Reference > > Why Is Missouri Called the “Show-Me” State? > > There are a number of stories and legends behind Missouri’s sobriquet “Show-Me” state. The slogan is not official, but is common throughout the state and is used on Missouri license plates. > The most widely known legend attributes the phrase to Missouri’s U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying. > > Other versions of the “Show-Me” legend place the slogan’s origin in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. There, the phrase was first employed as a term of ridicule and reproach. A miner’s strike had been in progress for some time in the mid-1890s, and a number of miners from the lead districts of southwest Missouri had been imported to take the places of the strikers. The Joplin miners were unfamiliar with Colorado mining methods and required frequent instructions. Pit bosses began saying, “That man is from Missouri. You’ll have to show him.” > > However the slogan originated, it has since passed into a different meaning entirely, and is now used to indicate the stalwart, conservative, noncredulous character of Missourians. > > Resources: > Rossiter, Phyllis. “I’m from Missouri–you’ll have to show me.” Rural Missouri, Volume 42, Number 3, March 1989, page 16. > > Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1979-1980, page 1486. ---
**Author:** ![SoMoMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@SoMoMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoMoMom)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932/44 "2000-12-29T20:11:09Z")
Crunchy, my mother is from Arkansas and we were not allowed to talk with a St. Louis accent, but many of my friends whose parents grew up in St. Louis City talked that way. Before I was born, my brother came home from Kindergarten and had picked up the “youz” word. My mother told him, “It’s not “youz”, it’s “y’all”.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ravendriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dc4da7/32.png) [@Ravendriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravendriver)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2000, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932/45 "2000-12-29T20:55:39Z")
Okay. Not being from Missouri, I picked up the idea that pronouncing it -EE meant you weren’t from there and that natives said -UH. But why, if the town was in fact founded by French trappers and such, who would never say “Saynt Lew-iss” do y’all have such a problem with “Saw Louie?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vote-here-is-it-prounounced-missour-ee-or-missour-uh/46932.md?page=2)