the Show-me State

本日の裏ゼミ活動で教わった、 “the Show-me State”をご紹介いたします。

『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版，大修館）に、“the Show-me State”はミズーリ州の愛称と書かれておりました。

また“I’m from Missouri”で、「証拠を見せられるまで信じませよ，容易に納得しませんよ」という意味であると記載されておりました。

裏ゼミ中でも由来を教えていただきましたが、改めてインターネットで調べたところ以下のように書かれておりました。

Why is Missouri called the "Show-Me" State?

There are a number of stories and legends behind Missouri's sobriquet "Show-Me" state. The slogan is not official, but is common throughout the state and is used on Missouri license plates.

The most widely known legend attributes the phrase to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying.

Other versions of the "Show-Me" legend place the slogan's origin in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. There, the phrase was first employed as a term of ridicule and reproach. A miner's strike had been in progress for some time in the mid-1890s, and a number of miners from the lead districts of southwest Missouri had been imported to take the places of the strikers. The Joplin miners were unfamiliar with Colorado mining methods and required frequent instructions. Pit bosses began saying, "That man is from Missouri. You'll have to show him."

However the slogan originated, it has since passed into a different meaning entirely, and is now used to indicate the stalwart, conservative, noncredulous character of Missourians.

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/slogan.asp

以上の文章から、様々な諸説がある中で大きく二つの由来があることが分かります。

一つ目は、ある議員が “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”と言ったからだと考えられております。同英和辞典にも、「ミズーリの議員が “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."と言ったことから」との記載がございました。

二つ目は、炭鉱の採掘場でストライキが起こった時にその親方が “That man is from Missouri. You'll have to show him”と言ったことからだと考えられております。（Gomez）