The 

a in bread (as well as in tread) does nothing. You might as well spell it bred except that
then it looks too much like the past tense of breed. So don't do that. A is similarly indefensible
A in aisle and aesthetic.
Most silent b's come at the ends of words and just
after m: bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb. Just when
one starts to feel comfortable with the relative regularity of these, debt and subtle show up like
B a couple of toughs.
C may as well cede all power to s in words like science and scissors, but we'll also point out
C that it's not doing much of anything in acquire, indict, or muscle.
D is shirking its auditory duties in handkerchief and mostly doing the same in handsome. Its
D appearance in Wednesday can only be seen as some kind of cruel joke.

The word sleeve has an excessive number of e's. We're saying it right

now. Sleve or sleev would work fine, but English does not like to leave v's on the ends of
words; it props them up with e's, as though they'd fall over otherwise. That v habit explains,
E then, words like leave and give, but there's no excusing the e in words like imagine.
The h's at the beginning of heir, honest, and honor have nothing to say. Neither do the ones
in rhyme and ghost. That h makes a contribution of a sort in the second syllable of rhythm only
H goes so far in repairing the letter's record.
I doesn't do a blessed thing in business, except to be impersonated by the u in the first syllable.
It also does no discernible good in suit, which in a decent orthographic system would be
I spelled soot.
Some of you may be happy to know that we have at this point only one English word in which
J the j is silent: marijuana.
The silent k in a slew of common words demonstrates a callousness for beginner spellers
K especially: knee, knife, knight, knit, knob, knock, knot, know, knuckle.

The most indecent of the silent l words is surely colonel. The word sounds identical to kernel,
which is an honorable, respectfully spelled word. L is also silent in could, should, would, as well
L as in calf and half, and in chalk, talk, walk, and for many people in calm, palm, and psalm.
 One can get through much of life never encountering m in its silent form. By the time a person
M is ready for a word like mnemonic they have likely come to accept the vagaries of silent letters.

Like silent b's, silent n's tend to come at the ends of words and

after m: autumn, column, damn, hymn, limn, solemn. While this might suggest to some
N that m is a little too accommodating, we would never anthropomorphize letters in such a way.
There is the flagrant excess of letters in enough, rough, and tough, where o is among several
who have no place being there. Then there is the formerly mentioned ruffian colonel, in which
neither o behaves properly and the second o doesn't even bother to try. But in addition to those
we then also have jeopardy, leopard, and people. We'll let you draw your own conclusions
O about o
P is silent before n in a selection of somewhat technical terms, such
as pneumonia and pneumatic. And it's silent before s in a different selection of words such
as psalm, psyche, and psychology. It boldly says nothing in corps and coup and receipt. In
some pronunciations of comptroller it somehow convinces m to join with it in dissembling; the
P two there impersonate n.
Q tends to function wholly aboveboard as an upstanding member of the alphabet. Most of us
Q are fortunate to encounter its dereliction in lacquer only occasionally

R R exists in forecastle only to mock landlubbers. It exists in February only to make us suffer.

S is a mostly-reliable letter. Its failings are limited largely to aisle, apropos, debris, isle,

S and island. We cannot, however, overlook its participation in the hot mess that is bourgeois.
T refuses to be audible in ballet, castle, listen, and whistle. In asthma it conspires with h to
T shun its usual duties.

U may appear reasonable, but evidence to the contrary is not difficult to

find: build, catalogue, dialogue, colleague, guard, guess, laugh, league, tongue. Note that the
second and third of these words have attempted eviction and are meeting with significant
U success: catalog and dialog are both fully accepted variant spellings.
 V is at this point the only letter that refuses to be unheard in any established word of the
language. And yet a dark cloud gathers on the horizon: in late May 2017 a much-followed and
likely sleep-addled Twitter user tweeted out what was clearly a partially developed
composition. The Internet seized on the enigmatic final word and discussed it ad nauseam. Of
the myriad pronunciations suggested for this non-word, several of the strongest contenders
V had a silent v.

W yields all power to the r that follows it

in wrack, wraith, wrangle, wrap, wreath, wren, wrench, wrestle, wrinkle, wrist, writ, write, wrong,
and wrought. As if that lot were not enough, w with no apparent logic whatsoever sits idly silent
W in answer, sword, two, and who as well.

We will admit to some small appreciation of x's discretion in its orthographic indiscretion. Its
X silence seems perhaps calculated in faux and faux pas.

We cannot blame y for its gratuitous presence in beyond. The letter may, in fact, believe itself
to be essential in the word. It cannot be ignored, however, that the word would reasonably
Y have its same pronunciation if it were spelled "beond," "beeond," or "be-ond."

There will surely be attempts to blame the French, and yet the following have been fully
established members of the English language for centuries now: chez, laissez-faire,
Z and rendezvous. We cannot look the other way, Z.