More trivia: origin of the wheel group

[Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.]

mike bueide wrote:

>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 .
>  
>
Possibly, but that wouldn't explain that it's commonly
known among old fogeys (sic --- "look" doesn't give a plural)
in Missouri.

Not very salty,

Kevin Kinsey