Phonetic Definitions in Dictionaries are a Complete Waste of Time

Here's a dictionary definition for the word 'diaspora' from Merriem Webster Online
Main Entry: di·as·po·ra

Pronunciation: dī-ˈas-p(ə-)rə, dē-

 

Now I'm talking here about the phonetic definition, that is, how each word is pronounced. If you don't know what I mean by phonetics, think back to when you were first taught the alphabet, and were taught "ah, buh, cuh, duh, eh…' etc. How the letters sound is phonetics…

 

Look above! What freaking help is that to anyone? They may as well have the 'how you say this word' section in French or Latin! I mean, really, what flipping use is it to anyone? Who can read "dī-ˈas-p(ə-)rə, dē-"

 

To make matters worse, there are several ways dictionaries display pronunciation:

 

Here's the same word on the Cambridge Dictionary Website "/daɪˈæs.pər.ə", and on the Google Dictionary Website "/daɪ'æspərə/, from dictionary.net /Di*as"po*ra/

 

Now dictionaries are supposed to be helpful, and to be fair to the above websites, some have a little audio icon you can click to hear someone say the word (wrongly, in American, probably, e.g. 'butter' pronounced 'budder', or 'bank' pronounced 'benk' - there's a whole other article on here somewhere about American pronunciation, if you want to get into that!). So that's not too bad...but my gripe here is about the phonetic spelling you see in pretty much all dictionaries, not just online ones. You have just seen four explanations of how to say the word 'diaspora', none of which would be any use, to anyone.

I still don't know how to say this word: is it dye-ass-purra, or dye-az-pore-ah, dee-ass-per-ah? I'm none the wiser having read the above, and I know of no one who would be.

 

The phonetic alphabets used in dictionaries are: useless, unhelpful, irregular, inconsistent, indecipherable and uninformative, to everyone except trained linguists, who would no doubt know how to pronounce most difficult words anyway.