Ron,

I wasn't serious.
It is a normal process in all languages that often used words get shorter. Automobil became Auto in German, Fahrrad (bicycle) became Rad and even Kaiserslautern (K-town) is often called Lautern now in spoken German. Amerikaner we often just call 'Ami(s)' (pron: ummy) BTW.

Wolfgang (being glad about the shortening of LlanfairPG by the Brits; sorry about that)