@n8foo the other day I learned that most of those gh are silent, just like the k in knee or knight. I was taught English with phonetic/IPA symbols, but after 40y I can't remember how those words were taught¹. I always did, and suspect will continue to do, to vocalize a very short glotal stop there. ¹ like here.

I keep saying it, English is one of the hardest languages to learn to read an write. It has no rules, you have to remember each word.