Their last name is French but they have no accent whatsoever

they pronounce it cambridge like jam or lamb? It is much more widely pronounced cambridge like lame or same

I can say both of those slowly. I honestly don’t see how saying those two vowels slowly shows which is long or short. Also a speech pathologist in the comments told me jam is not a short vowel (like hat, which I can say slowly just fine too.) Jam is a nasalize vowel influenced by an n or m after it

Bangor? I hardly know her

psst don't tell anyone, I've been going around say caaambridge for the past few years in preparation for this post

Ah gotcha, thanks! When I originally wrote the post I had just quickly googled “hard and soft vowels” and some results came up so I used that, didn’t realize it wasn’t the typical terms

That’s really interesting, makes sense that it’s not just a binary between long/short. Do you prefer using long/short or hard/soft? Or do you just compare to other words to disambiguate? Thanks so much for the expert opinion, häts off to you 😉

I absolve you of your sins, go in peace

You can say a short vowel slowly though right?

What? I accept long and short vowels as a concept, I just find them confusing

Lol, or Billerica like ‘murica, burica

Yeah I guess it’s all subjective whichever words you use, better to compare to other words

Well we live in Am air eh cah so it makes sense

I find long and short confusing because you can say a soft vowel slowly or a hard vowel quickly

Bizarre. Do they say War-chester too?

I take umbrage with your pronunciation of Cumbridge

Oh I misread your comment, I thought you said you pronounce it that way and then moved to arizona lol, nm

No accent, I wouldn't let it bother me if someone with an accent pronounced local words wrong

Did you try to pronounce it like everyone else and found it hard to do?

Once you heard other people saying "came" then I assume you switched. This person hears other people pronouncing it different yet hasn't changed, I'm baffled