In article >, Charlene Charette > wrote:
>Steve Wertz wrote:
>> On 12 May 2007 17:25:15 -0700, wrote:
>>
>>>There is no d in refrigerate.
>>
>> But there is in 'fridge'. Go figure.
>
>That's because "fridge" comes from "Frigidaire" not "refrigerator".
At first I thought this was nonsense, but I can see the point:
If one assumes the pronunciation of "Frigidaire" for the abridged
version [nominally "Frig"] then it would have to be spelt "fridge".
Incidentally, I hadn't realised that Frigidaire developed the original
self-contained refrigerators. The brand name seemed to come later
than others here in Oz as far as I recall. But that may be a
consequence of our old "Commonwealth trade preferences" whereby damn
nearly everything (except decent cars) came from Pommieland for the
first half century or more of "Australia". I can still recall my
surprise at age 12 or 13 when reading that something like 50% of the
world's economy was based in the USA at that time -- and about the
only US products we saw here then were motor vehicles.
Cheers, Phred.
--
LID