Why there's a D in fridge

Originally posted: 03/20/2021
Talkin about that D in “fridge.”
Transcription:
Did you know that the word fridge might not have come directly from the word refrigerator? It's quite possible that it actually began as a shortening of the specific brand Frigidaire. Regardless, the question remains, why is there a D in it?
There's a whole article length answer on Quora that discusses the spelling of old and middle English and how it was affected by Latin and later romance languages. But I'll give you the oversimplified version.
Because of some behind the scenes rules that all of us employ flawlessly but almost none of us know explicitly when the word ends with a vowel and then the letter G, it's almost always a hard G sound.
Big, rug, dog. When people started shortening Frigidaire or refrigerator, the change happened in speech and spelling wasn't an issue. But then when writers needed to use it, there was some confusion.
When they sliced off all the letters but F, R, I, and G ,it left a word no one was saying, Frig. So, they had to adjust and standardize the spelling to how English users spell words that end in a soft G. And that is in the warm embrace of a D and an E. And that is how Frig became Fridge. Thank you for listening to the most boring way anything ever had a D put in it.
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