[taejo]

Are you aware that less than 15% of English words have irregular pronunciation (which is not to say the "regular" rules aren't baroque). And the pronunciation of "bay" is certainly regular: it's not that "y" is silent, but rather "ay" is a digraph that is pronounced in a regular way.

[Dewie]

> (which is not to say the "regular" rules aren't baroque)

Well that's my point! I haven't found it useful to figure out or reason about whatever regular rules there are, because they are baroque to the point that I find it easier to just go by intuition, for the most part.

[taejo]

Well that's what most people do -- it's the regularity that allows you to have an intuition. For all the baroqueness, eqrtlk will never be an English word and ghoti will never be pronounced like fish (despite claims to the contrary). I didn't mean to suggest that you should try to learn the rules from a book; I just meant you are wasting effort if you learn the spelling and pronunciation as completely independent items.