Originally Posted by
braslvr
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Either I hang with a select group of slang users, or it's just dumb luck. My circle of friends do tend to be the type to use abbreviated words more than most.... just for fun.
If there isn't the right sort of English or Australian person to use the term in your group, odds are one of them (or likely a subgroup) probably had some of that sort of friend around for a while, or lived over there somewhere, or was hooked on the wrong sort of TV from one country or the other.
The whole "dumb abbreviations" of that sort is very much a feature of certain sorts of commonwealth dialects. Perhaps it's coincidence, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet on it being borrowing and not convergence.
(In email/text speak, as abbreviations I see Americans use a lot lest pseudo-phonetic cutesy-ness; it'd be more likely to become b-fast or bkfst or something of that sort.)
Old sayings too- gotta keep em alive!
"I have to see a man about a horse" for going to the can?