I was thinking, I could also have what I have heard backwards; now you said all that, i'm trying to think whether it was spanish friends from spain, or spanish-speaking texans or mexicans using that usage, or what - it's been a while - I just am sure I've heard two dramatically different ones... and there are certainly a lot of native-spanish-speakers around here who are not literate or don't have an educated language grasp, which always adds an interesting twist to the global development of any language - like how, in English, it's now okay to casually split infinitives, much as I hate hearing it... I once knew a very small doctor from central america, when I was in Austria, who would perplex all the spaniards there. My favorite reported conversation was when a spanish friend was trying to have a conversation about, basically, crib notes, with Danilo, the doctor, and somehow the castillian word for crib notes, I think, was what the doctor used for "slab of meat". It was very surreal and funny.
actually, I think danilo was argentinian, I wonder what word Argentina of this forum uses for "slab of meat"?