Pronunciation was an exercise in anarchy, as regional dialects were so varied in England that a "Geordie could confuse a resident of Tunbridge Wells only three hundred miles away" ( Bragg 91). The Great Vowel Shift, which covered a period of more than 200 years, was a change in the pronunciation of long vowels that reinforced the inconsistency between spelling and elocution. While not affecting all English dialects equally, vowels that had been “held in the mouth for a relatively long time, such as the long ee in meet, rather than the short e in met” (Bragg 96) were now pronounced more forward of the mouth. Dame, whose previous vowel pronunciation was similar to that of ma'am, now sounded like a long version of dam (Crystal, Spell It Out 130). There were seven vowels that were affected by this shift from Middle English to Modern English pronunciation. /a/ became /er/ as a name or companion; /ε/ and /e/ became /i/ like tea or see; /i/ became /aı/ as in time or bite; /ᴐ/ became /əu/ like bone; /o/ became /u/ as in boot; and /u/ became /au/ come out or house (Upward & Davidson 177). By the end of the Great Vowel Shift, centuries of printing had largely established written uniformity, and so modern orthography does not reflect this new system of pronunciation (Bragg 96). There are some exceptions, such as the practice of addition