Austin is known as a "weird" place. That's up for debate.
But there are some collective idiosyncrasies that are pretty unique, weird and inarguably wrong — one of which is how we pronounce things. Roads are a specialty, but we've got some towns in the mix, too.
People will correct you and, either directly or indirectly, make you feel like you're an absolute nincompoop for pronouncing something (probably) correctly. They will lead you to believe The Soul of Austin™️ demands these precise and apocryphal pronunciations, and that violating that sacred trust makes you an interloper.
They are wrong.
Yet, the pronunciations, or mispronunciations, persist.
So here's a rundown on the history and histrionics of Austin's famous mispronunciations.
Parmer Lane
This road used to be called Palmer Lane. Why it was changed to Parmer is literally anyone's guess.
A few years back, Austin's paper of record printed a letter that suggested it was named after a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Martin Parmer. The thing is, he never lived in Austin and, in an interesting twist of fate, his 10 children changed their name to Palmer upon his death. Still, there's a county named after him. The paper of record retracted that letter.
Other Austinites have hypothesized the road was named after a former mayor, Lester Palmer, but the Austin History Center shut that down because the timing didn't line up.
Records from the Travis County Clerk's office show that the road was called Palmer Lane in 1954 when the county dropped $3,670 to build out the then-farm-to-market road. Same in 1955.
Palmer, the former mayor, was elected in 1961.
"Parmer" seemingly first appears in the Statesman in January 1958, in a classified ad for a farmhouse 4 miles north of town "on Walnut Creek and Parmer Lane."
In the early- and mid-60s Travis County deeds show the name changed to Parmer and a subdivision was called Parmer Lane Heights. But, to add to the confusion, Travis County still called it Palmer Road in 1969, when it spent more money building out the road.
Bottom line: It's likely a misspelling but still a mystery. It's also the reason all self-respecting Austinites put palmesean on their noodle-based Italian cuisine and order a chicken or eggplant "palm," if they can, indeed, be found.
Burnet Road
It's pronounced BURN-it, not bur-NETTE. An easy way to remember is this rallying cry: It’s Burnit, durn it — learn it!
It's not clear whether the road is named for David Burnet, the one-time interim president of the Republic of Texas who commissioned the then-country's first official flag. That one adopted a single star, though there's a lot more to Texas' vexillological history, believe me.
This guy's name was, or is, pronounced by the Texas State Historical Association as "bur-NETTE." Also, this reporter can confirm it was pronounced that same way in his mandatory fourth- and seventh-grade Texas history classes many moons ago.
Chalk the mispronunciation up to regionalism, as the town northwest of Austin along the Highland Lakes pronounces it "BURN-it."
Manor
It's pronounced MAY-nur, not MAN-err, like — for reasons unknown — most humans pronounce it.
Pedernales
For this one, you can blame President Lyndon B. Johnson. The man did a lot of things. One of those things was to impose his weird pronunciation of this river and state park upon generations of unwilling Texans.
Instead of ped-err-NAH-less, as it was pronounced for generations, LBJ pronounced it perd-uhn-ALICE.
Buda
Nope, you're not pronouncing it like the founder of the world's fourth-most prominent religion. It's BYOO-duh. This pronunciation, too, is an anglicization of the Spanish word for widow, vuida.
The fast-growing town outside of Austin was founded in 1881 as Du Pre, a stop along the freshly lain railroad tracks and a depot that accompanied it. As the town tells it, the U.S. Postal Service balked at the name, as another town was named Du Pre. Apparently, the name is a reference to a pair of widows who cooked at the Carrington Hotel in the 1880s.
Texans being Texans, they anglicized viuda to Buda.
Guadalupe
It's one of the more aggressive anglicizations on this list. It's pronounced "GWAD-uh-loop." It's close to a longstanding anglicization of the river named by Spanish colonizers centuries ago.
But the street that plies UT Austin's Forty Acres is also known as "The Drag," and has been by UT students for a century. Back in the olden times when people wrote Faulkner-esqe prose with sentences as long as paragraphs, the American Statesman had a loving ode to The Drag in January 1925 in a column entitled "Hamburger Spirit":
The row of little hamburger shacks on Guadalupe, with their spicy aroma of pickles and hot buns, their jazz squeaking forth in pure delight from little worn-out Victrolas, is the heaven of this class. If you have never been there and listened to the chatter of youthful voices and seen the free spirit of comradship, you cannot know why we love our school so much or are contented to stroll along "the drag" ... satisfied with the world and ourselves.
The Drag has since expanded its offerings, though hamburger stands have been there since its inception, seemingly. One has outlasted them all — for now.
Koenig
Germans would argue differently, but here in Austin, it's KAY-nig. To be fair, the proper German pronunciation of the North Austin road requires phonetics that don't really exist in English.
Mueller
Depends on who you ask, with this one. People have strong feelings about how to pronounce the former airport that's now a mixed-use development/neighborhood.
For some, it is a litmus test, and if you fail that litmus test, you are a part of a horde of leeches preying upon The Soul of Austin™️. You are, they may surmise, a leech-in-chief who just moved here and won't stop blathering about how great the breakfast burritos are and how much South Congress reminds you of Old Pasadena and how you are a sentient Cybertruck.
As we've pointed out with this one, the facts are pretty dang clear here. There was a guy, Robert Mueller. People liked him. So much so that 9 out of 10 voters elected him to office. He died shortly after taking office. Some of those people who liked him named an airport after him, as you do. That airport was decommissioned. The land was sold off. It was developed. The name stuck.
People began pronouncing it differently than others.
You're up to date.
Some people say it like "Miller." Other people say "MEW-luhr." Austin, a house divided, contains multitudes.
Choose your side.
Or call it MOO-luhr, which is (arguably) closer to the (correct) German pronunciation.
Menchaca
You'll likely hear folks pronounce this road "MAN-chack." There's a whole mess of history there. The long-and-short of it is that the road was named after a man, that man's name was incorrectly spelled, and then it got changed.
The South Austin road was named after a Mexican-born luminary in the Texas Revolution, José Antonio Menchaca, but it started with an official misspelling.
In 1836, Menchaca was honored by the then-Republic of Texas after fighting in the Texas Revolution. His name was misspelled in that honorary resolution, and that misspelling persisted.
As railroads made their way into Texas, a town cropped up south of Austin near a spring, called Manchaca. The road that led to that town adopted the name and it, too, persisted.
Austinites called it MAN-chack, an anglicization based on a misnomer, for eons.
Enter Judge Bob Perkins. Perkins, along with the descendants of Menchaca, successfully petitioned the city to rename the street Menchaca after a yearslong campaign.
Folks took umbrage with that and sued the city, challenging the manner in which the city rolled out the name change and the historical veracity of Perkins' effort.
They were unsuccessful, and it's still known as Menchaca Road, but you'll likely hear an errant "MAN-chack" every now and again.
