Way back in high school, I took driver’s ed in a dumpy complex adjacent to Austin’s Burnet Road. That’s BURnet. One of my instructors, of uncertain wisdom, taste in clothes, and sexuality, frequently told me to turn onto BurNET. I wanted to slap his rat-tail for not knowing how to pronounce the street printed on his paycheque.
I discovered a more tactful way I could have taught him. The Texas Hill Country has a line for this very occasion: ‘It’s Burnet, durn it, can’t you learn it?’