[goodcanadian]

The sibling comments are good answers. Another factor is the fact that written English goes back a long time. In some cases, pronunciation has drifted over time, but the spelling didn't change. The silent k's in words like knight and knife were not always silent, for example, but you have to go back to old English for them to be pronounced.

[nayuki]

Donald Knuth bucks the trend by insisting the KN to both be pronounced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth

[em-bee]

this somehow reminds me of niklaus wirth who supposedly said that you can call him by name or by value.