Missouri

requiring proof; needing to be shown something in order to believe it. (From the nickname for the state of Missouri, the Show Me State.) You'll have to prove it to me. I'm from Missouri. She's from Missouri and has to be shown.

I'm extremely skeptical so you'll have to prove it. For example, You won the lottery? Come on, I'm from Missouri. The full expression, I'm from Missouri and you'll have to show me, dates from about 1880. Some authorities believe it alludes to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, whereby Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state and slavery was forbidden in certain other areas, but the connection, if any, is not clear.

Prove it! Missouri's unofficial nickname is the Show-Me State, based on the inhabitants' reputed skepticism. One legend attributes the phrase's popularity to Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver. While a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, he said at an 1899 naval banquet, “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.” Even people who didn't hail from that state could be heard to question something with “I'm from Missouri . . . you'll have to show me.”