IPA is great for writing down how people speak, but I don't think that's the most important aspect to capture for most writing. An example where this might be u

IPA is great for writing down how people speak, but I don't think that's the most important aspect to capture for most writing. An example where this might be useful is the dialogue in Twain's novels, where he would often try to capture the particulars of his characters dialects. But for most writing the goal is to share meaning, not voice. What would we do for a word like `data`, which has at least 5 different pronunciations that I've heard. Accepting all of them would probably lead to the opposite of the goal. Picking one leads to the same controversy. Add to that people often aren't aware of their own pronunciation. Personal example is that in my dialect I have the fool/full merger. I wasn't aware of this, I simply heard the language other people spoke as I pronounced it. At university I literally didn't believe people who were telling me that they pronounce those words differently. I just couldn't hear it.