[ih] What is the origin of the root account?

[jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)]

I think you are getting close to what we are discovering:  There was 
a root, and there was an account built-in that gave one access to the 
root, and it was natural to refer to it as the "root account," but 
the documentation didn't call it that.  ;-)

Common usage created the concept (phrase) in the community and it 
becomes so used it seems it should be there.  This is not uncommon.

Take care,
John

At 4:00 AM +0000 4/13/13, John Levine wrote:
>  >There is not mention of a "root" user anywhere in the paper.
>
>Every version of Unix I ever saw, at least as far back as 1974, had a
>root account called "root".
>
>R's,
>John