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.'>