Even the H in John is silent.

My middle name, Lindley, arguably has a silent E.

•••

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who coined that. GBS spent much of his adult life vexed by the inconsistency of the English language/alphabet.

Thinking about it myself the only partial “fix” I could come up with was addressing the letter C. C has no distinct sound of its own, usually presenting as S or K, and sometimes pairing with H to also make the K sound, as in SCHOOL, or the CHUH we see in CHURCH.

MY “solution” was to use S and K where those sounds appeared—SKOOL, SIRKUS—and give the CH sound to C alone, so CHURCH would become CURC, CHERRY would be CERRY, and so on.