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.
Transcript of “Vocal Variants of Missouri”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you?
Doing well. Who’s this?
This is Greg from St. Joseph.
Hi, Greg. St. Joseph.
Is that Missouri?
Well, that’s the whole reason I’m calling.
Okay, so you’re in the north?
How it’s pronounced.
Explain the dilemma to us.
Well, some people say Missouri, and some people say Missouri.
And it’s actually politicians wrestle with how to pronounce it.
And I’ve looked into it, and I don’t think that there’s a correct way of knowing it.
And how do you pronounce it?
Well, it depends upon the circumstances, probably, but usually Missouri.
And are you born and raised in Missouri your whole life?
Yes.
Okay.
Branch, you’re from Missouri, too, aren’t you?
I am, yeah. Born in St. Louis, lived mostly in the east and southeastern part of the state.
My father’s people are from just above the boot heel, and my mother’s people are from around St. Louis.
So where is St. Joseph?
Northwest, just north of Kansas City.
Yeah, north of Kansas City, about 50 miles.
It was the famous starting point for a lot of the wagon trains west.
And the Pony Express.
St. Joe was very important to the history of the west.
Okay, but you stayed behind.
And Jesse James was shot here.
Jesse James was shot there?
Yes.
Did you say? Okay. All right.
So this is a really interesting question.
Do you mind if I ask how old you are?
I’m 62.
62. And are your parents perhaps still around, or do you remember what they said?
Did they say Missouri or Missouri?
My mother’s still alive.
Okay. Do you know what she says?
And I think she usually said Missouri.
Okay. Yeah. And you’re a Missouri sayer. Do you have kids who say?
No.
Okay. What, nieces, nephews maybe?
No, I don’t really know. I have nieces and nephews, but I don’t know how they would.
There was a linguist by the name of Donald Lance who died a few years ago.
He was at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and he studied this exact thing.
And there was a paper published after he died where one of his students and colleagues put it together, and he has summed up the entirety, everything that is known about the pronunciation of Missouri since the 1600s.
I’ve seen that paper. It’s like the history of Western civilization.
Yeah, it’s fantastic. And I think it’s readable even by the…
It’s like the explorations and Indian tribes and the proper pronunciations of final eyes and all sorts of things.
Yep, we’ll link to it.
It’s called The Pronunciation of Missouri, Variation and Change in American English.
And he pegs this to the French in the United States.
He pegs this to the various interpretations of the languages that were spoken by the native people.
He even pegs this to the variability of spelling in the individual notes of the particular explorers and the people who did the traveling in the West, as it was known then.
Missouri was considered the West at that point.
Anyway, in sum, what we find is that the inconsistency in pronunciation has been with us basically for 400 years.
And you do find two or three major trends.
One is the pronunciation of the state as Missouri grows more frequent as time passes.
And we have this over the last 100 years or so.
We have pretty solid data on this.
You find that, therefore, you find that the younger generation is more likely to say Missouri, and the older generation says Missouri.
It’s the same in my family.
My father, who is 72, says Missouri, and I say Missouri, even though we’re both native Missourians.
How interesting.
And the other thing that you see is that in Missouri itself, in the state, people are more likely to say Missouri, and yet up the Missouri River in the other states, you’ll find that people are more likely to say Missouri.
So this is just as you go northwest, up the Missouri, follow it upstream, all the way to its origin.
It’s just more and more likely to be Missouri.
So these are the three major things that are happening there.
But you’re right.
You hit something on the nail on the head.
Politicians tend to say Missouri because they struggle for authenticity.
They want to sound folksy.
And they know maybe they had an advisor that says older people vote.
Older people say Missouri.
You should say Missouri too.
So you’re right.
Neither pronunciation is correct.
There are known characteristics about the people who use one pronunciation or the other, and there is a trend for Missouri to become more common.
Probably in another 50 to 100 years, Missouri will be almost completely gone.
Well, Greg, I hope that Grant has boiled that article down for you.
We’ll link to it, of course, and everyone else can read it.
I think it’s very comprehensible by anyone, even if you don’t have linguistic expertise.
Well, it was fun.
Take care now.
Bye, Greg.
All right, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
