those parenthetical sounds to be explicit, presented in IPA notation as they are.

Sorry. In my defense, I did add the traditional vowels with macrons to represent the sounds, too.

unfortunately, they leave many of us gasping for breath.

Yes, it is annoying. I feel the same way when people start talking about sports or autos.

Reviewing the sequence, I think that the final one, the long u (ū), is probably better transcribed as /jʊ:/. (So. it would be a diphthong.)

Ceci n'est pas un seing.