From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Dec 21 17:20:00 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA1F016A4CE for ; Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:20:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from 82-41-155-225.cable.ubr01.linl.blueyonder.co.uk (82-41-155-225.cable.ubr01.linl.blueyonder.co.uk [82.41.155.225]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8316243D6B for ; Sun, 21 Dec 2003 17:19:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from andrew@cream.org) Received: from cream.org (spatula.home [192.168.0.4]) by gateway.home (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57589123; Mon, 22 Dec 2003 01:19:57 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <3FE646A3.6080907@cream.org> Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 01:19:31 +0000 From: Andrew Boothman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031205 Thunderbird/0.4 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bill Moran References: <3FE500F4.3060108@potentialtech.com> <3FE63E95.2020201@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <3FE63E95.2020201@potentialtech.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: More trivia: origin of the wheel group X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 01:20:01 -0000 Bill Moran wrote: >>> 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? It sounds pretty plausible though. The only place I can remember hearing the term, "big wheel", before is in a Simpson's episode where Milhouse describes his dad as a, "big wheel down at the cracker factory", or something like that! Works for me! Andrew