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March 29, 2013 8:51 am
How do you pronounce Missouri? The late Donald Lance, a former professor from the University of Missouri at Columbia, compiled the exhaustive research that became The Pronunciation of Missouri: Variation and Change in American English, which traces the discrepancy between Missour-ee and Missour-uh all the way back to the 1600s. Today the pronunciation mostly divides along age lines, with older people saying Missour-uh and younger ones saying Missour-ee. The exceptions are politicians, who often say Missour-uh to sound authentic or folksy. This is part of a complete episode.