Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 11:34:15 -0800 From: Peter Richardson 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.'>