Different word, same concept, so may or may not count as a tangent to the topic, but, hey, astrologically I'm a Gemini, if you are in to that, I'm not, so, yeah, by definition my twin is going to think of a second word ...
I follow the Battleship New Jersey museum on YouTube and the curator Ryan recently did some things about BB-63 Missouri.
It was interesting to see a number of comments telling him he was pronouncing Missouri wrong.
And that as a museum curator he would look a whole lot better if he learned how to pronounce Missouri correctly.
Huh?
No.
He isn't.
My parents, now 83, are from MO, one near Kansas City, one near Branson.
I've lived in Missouri since 1987, presently toward center of state.
No.
He isn't.
Ahh ...
A little bit of interaction showed that at least a couple people who were insisting Ryan was ignorant of the "correct" pronunciation of Missouri were not originally from MO.
And that they lived around Saint Louis.
Thing is ...
Linguists have identified something like 8, eight, different historical pronunciations of Missouri.
And two different currently dominant pronunciations.
A good portion of the public will tell you that the pronunciation divide is North-South.
Actual study of it has shown it is divided West-East.
With a dash of N-S variation in places.
A thing I've seen in my parents' families.
And,
Which reveals why the non-native St Louis crowd was insisting they were right and Ryan was wrong.
Anyway ... pronunciation of Missouri ...
has documented historical and current variations in what is done with ...
the 'ss'
the 'ou'
the 'ri'
either individually or in some combination.
EDIT: How'd I leave out the beginning of the word?
In "Mi" that 'i' gets pronounced more like the 'y' in Lyft or more like the 'a' & 'u' in what pug.
Ultimately,
Missouri is ...
an Englishified Frenchization of a Native American word.
so ...
... how is even the mere concept of "correct" pronunciation applicable at all?