More trivia: origin of the wheel group

[mike bueide]

On Sun, Dec 21, 2003 at 07:45:09PM -0500, Bill Moran wrote:
> Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> >Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> writes:
> >
> >>Does anyone know why the wheel group is called "wheel"?  I mean, why not
> >>"admins" or something like that.  "wheel" certainly is a cryptic name for
> >>the administrators group.  Anyone have any idea why it's called "wheel"?
> >
> >Seems obvious to me.  "Big wheel" was slang for "one who calls the
> >shots" or "VIP" as long as I can remember.  And "wheel" was common
> >slang for "big wheel".  Some sys admin must have seen sys admins as
> >qualifying.  Why "big wheel" had that meaning, I can only guess, but I
> >suspect it came from horsey days when people's importance was
> >pretty-well correlated with the size of their vehicle's wheels.
> 
> Interesting.  I can't remember ever hearing the term "Big wheel" before.
> Perhaps it's some local slang that is seldom used in western Pennsylvania?

Might it not be a maritime reference?  

---------
	Michael Bueide 
	mbueide (at) charter (dot) net .