State Nickname
The use of the unofficial nickname the Show-Me State has several possible origins. The phrase "I'm from Missouri" means "I'm skeptical of the matter and not easily convinced". This is related to the state's unofficial motto of "Show Me," whose origin is popularly ascribed to an 1899 speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver, who declared that "I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me." However, according to researchers, the phrase was in circulation earlier in the 1890s. According to another legend, the phrase was a reference to Missouri miners brought to Leadville, Colorado to take the place of striking miners and being unfamiliar with the mining methods there required frequent instruction.
Missouri is also known as "The Cave State" with over 6000 recorded caves (second to Tennessee). Perry County has both the largest number of caves and the single longest cave in the state.
Other nicknames include "The Lead State", "The Bullion State", "The Ozark State", "Mother of the West", "The Iron Mountain State", and "Pennsylvania of the West".
There is no official state nickname. However, the official state motto is "Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto", Latin for "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law."
Read more about this topic: Sports In Missouri
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or nickname:
“I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour ... was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)