‘ee’ or ‘uh’? A new poll pits the two most popular choices against each other.

Saint Louis University teamed with YouGov for a poll of 900 likely Missouri voters to learn how they pronounce the name of their home state.

The winner? Missour-EE is overwhelmingly preferred by an approximate 90-10 margin.

Statistically, the highest percentages of Missourians who say Missour-UH tend to skew older (16% at ages 65 and up) and live in the nortwest portion of the state (15%).

Pollsters included the pronunciation question among other examinations of different social, political, and economic issues affecting Missourians, and observed only a slight difference. Conservative-leaning voters were about 4.5% more likely to say Missour-UH. But Fox 2 in St. Louis spoke with a professor at SLU who thinks some “Missour-UH” users might be keeping quiet.

“Variation is ingrained in all languages, and there is nothing inherently ‘better’ about one way of pronouncing something over another,” said [Associate Professor of spanish at SLU Christina Garcia, Ph D]. “However, society creates associations between different forms of speaking and social characteristics, both positive and negative. Since ‘Missour-ee’ carries prestige in this case, it is likely that Missourians may be under-reporting their use of ‘Missour-uh.’” 

For what it’s worth, ‘misery’ was not included as a pronunciation choice.