Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 11:34:15 -0800

From: Peter Richardson prichard[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LINFIELD.EDU

Subject: Re: Trouble Hunters on WHEELS





"While riding his wheel he was

bitten by a dog. ... "



I wonder how may people know that WHEEL once commonly meant 'bicycle'? My

Iowa great-grandmother (b. 1860) regularly used this slang (?) term, and I

think also her daughters and her daughters' husbands used it. Farmer&Henley

list this usage, but give no noun cites. Chapman does not list it, nor does

Beale/Partridge.



This might be a loan translation of German Rad 'wheel,' probably used in

German-speaking Iowa a century ago just as it's still used today in

Germany for 'bicycle.'