Pronunciation was an exercise in anarchy, as regional dialects were so varied in England that a 'Geordie could confuse a resident of Tunbridge Wells at just three hundred miles away” (Bragg 91). The Great Vowel Shift, spanning a period of more than 200 years, was a change in the pronunciation of long vowels that reinforced the inconsistency between spelling and speech. Although they did not affect all English dialects equally, vowels that were "held in the mouth for a relatively long time, such as the long ee of meet, rather than the short e of met" (Bragg 96) were now pronounced more forward. of the mouth. Dame, whose ancient vowel pronunciation was similar to that of ma'am, now sounded like a long version of dam (Crystal, Spell It Out 130). Seven vowels were affected by this shift in pronunciation from Middle English to Modern English. /a/ became /er/ as in name or companion; /ε/ and /e/ became /i/ like tea or see; /i/ became /ai/ as in time or bite; /ᴐ/ became /əu/ such as bone; /o/ became /u/ as at startup; and /u/ became /au/ like outside 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 pronunciation system (Bragg 96). There are some exceptions, such as the practice of adding