No, "car as in character" is still. Car as in carpet, char as in chart - simple and doesn't require a course in IPA, which may I remind you precisely nobody understands.
Plenty of people understand IPA.
> No, "car as in character" is still.
It's still completely incomprehensible unless you know which vowel sound is meant, which is the whole point of this sub-thread.
"Plenty of people" is misleading. Plenty as in thousands, millions of people worldwide, possibly, not not plenty as a percentage of the english people world. I'd be surprised if more than 5% of english speakers look at an IPA description of a sound and do anything other than go "what the fuck does that mean?".