This is in response to your question about the d in fridge. Probably more than you ever wanted to know. When English was being developed, it took in a lot of Germanic, French and Latin words. When spelling became more or less standardized, without getting into too many specifics, g at the end of a word was hard (like gutter) when it ended the word (pig, hog, dog). Most of these short words were Anglo-Saxon. A word ending in g with an e after it became a soft g (as in giraffe), words like huge, rage, cage.
The French applied that throughout so their word for judge is juge. We changed that sound to dg as in bridge, badge, dodge. That's where we get the spelling. (Technically, there are various rules that apply such as the length of the vowel preceding the g and also from what language the word was adopted into English.)
The word fridge came into use in print in the 1920s, probably a shortened version of the brand name Frigidaire, but it was in common use for decades before. Some people used the spelling frig (pronounced fridge) as a shortened form of the word. The latest use of this spelling I could find was in 1988. But there is already a verb in English meaning to have sexual intercourse. Have you ever heard of anyone say frigging or its variant fricking? So we could add an e and have frige and pronounce like the French, or adopt the standard English spelling and use a dg.
So there you have a shortened version of why the d. (I have advanced degrees in languages which is one of the reasons I know this. Or as my wife says, I have a lot of useless information floating in my head.)