The state of Missouri is located in the Midwestern United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2009 estimated population of 5,987,580. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city. Missouri's capital is Jefferson City. The three largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield. Missouri was originally acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and became defined as the Missouri Territory. Part of the Missouri Territory was admitted into the union as the 24th state in August 10, 1821.
Missouri mirrors the demographic, economic and political makeup of the nation with a mix of urban and rural culture. It has long been considered a political bellwether state.[7] With the exceptions of 1956 and 2008, Missouri's results in U.S. presidential elections have accurately predicted the next President of the United States in every election since 1904. It has both Midwestern and Southern cultural influences, reflecting its history as a border state. It is also a transition between the Eastern and Western United States, as St. Louis is often called the "western-most Eastern city" and Kansas City the "eastern-most Western city." Missouri's geography is highly varied. The northern part of the state lies in dissected till plains while the southern part lies in the Ozark Mountains a (dissected plateau), with the Missouri River dividing the two. The confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers is located near St. Louis.
The pronunciation of the final syllable of "Missouri" is variable and a matter of considerable controversy,[11] with some insisting on a relatively tense vowel (as in "meet"), while others prefer a lax vowel ("mitt" or "mutt"). Speakers express strong feelings that their own rendering is the "original" or "correct" pronunciation.[12] Individuals may vary, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch documented in the case of Governor Jay Nixon.[13] The most thorough study of the question was done by dialectologist Donald Max Lance. Historically, a vowel halfway between the two ("missourih") was subjected to hypercorrection (the process which yields "tobacky" from a schwa-rendering of the final syllable of "tobacco"). The hypercorrect form becomes the normative way to write the word, and a spelling pronunciation develops. From a linguistic point of view, no single pronunciation is considered correct; rather, there are simply patterns of variation, diachronic as well as synchronic, according to divisions such as geography, age, education, and/or rural vs. urban location. The distribution of pronunciations has shifted over time. In general and at present, the schwa vowel correlates with proximity to Kansas City, older speakers (born before 1945), lower levels of formal education, and rural location. Lance notes less controversial but also systematic variations in pronunciation: the second consonant is most often voiced ("misery") but unvoiced by some speakers ("missive"), and the medial vowel is variously raised and unrounded ("lurk") or rounded ("lure"). Even the first syllable is variably rendered with a tense vowel or a schwa.