yeah, if we all knew the IPA, this wouldn't be a problem.

It never ceases to amaze me that we spend so much time teaching English orthography in schools (and have silly contests like spelling bees), but the thought of learning the IPA sends shivers down the collective spines of parents. In most languages with some sort of regularized phonemic orthography, children learn to read much faster. Even getting dictionaries to use IPA seems a duanting thankless task. The OED does.

Ceci n'est pas un seing.