A schwa is really any of several allophonic lax, indistinct vowels, often written "uh" in fauxnetic English; it is similar to an unstressed version of "uh" in most contexts (closer to "ih" in others), but still distinct from it.
2009 August 16, "Flying Tortoise" (username), "ACC 251 - Fauxnetics - The result", in rec.puzzles.crosswords, Usenet:
The fauxnetic is functional but uninspiring. [...] Nice fauxnetics (and sage advice) but I don't see any way to make 'those who are adjective X' a synonym/definition of 'adjective X'.