Rename or Redirect fishing: The Millstone

I would suggest renaming The Millstone because, well quite frankly, it is badly named.

The trope is "A character who is the cause of the failure of everyone's plan." The name comes from the idiom "a millstone around your neck". The issue is that a) the name is not very descriptive and b) The proverb the trope is named after is only cursory related to.

"A problem or responsibility that you have all the time which prevents you from doing what you want". So a single mother who needs to support her family, preventing her from becoming an actress is an example of someone with a millstone around their neck.

Anyway, there's no real misuse so if we do not rename it, I'd like to give it some redirects.

EDIT: The Millstone is also the name of a work, and of several people and locations, as well as real Millstones, failing the One Mario Limit.

edited 15th Jul '11 4:44:20 PM by Ghilz

I'd contest the "poorly named" point. It's actually a Biblical reference - Matthew 18:6, in reference to something that drags you down (in the original verse, to your death). And the phrase "millstone around one's neck" has been in the English language for quite some time (longer than my 32 years of age, at any rate).

It is based on familiarity with a saying, yes, but one that has quite a bit of history and usage behind it.

EDIT: I'll actually add notes about its origin to appropriate pages should the rename proposal fall through.

edited 15th Jul '11 4:48:28 PM by 32_Footsteps

The point is, (as you see the website I linked which cites the cambridge dictionary) the actual's saying's modern meaning is far wider than the trope implies.

And again, it's only named after part of the trope "the millstone" alone barely refers to the proverb (unlike if the trope was called "The millstone around the hero's neck"). On it's own, the millstone can sound like any number of things (like something that crushed or grinds stuff)

Perpetual Plan Killer, perhaps?

I think it's a poor name as it's too similar to The Load.

So, I don't get this... there's no misuse, it's fairly commonly used, it's based on a saying that's been in English for well over a century, it's listed in dictionaries with the same meaning (see here), is a Biblical reference...

Why is this even open? Did we run out of other tropes that needed repair? Or are we just renaming things so that everything has a literalist name at this point?

If it was simply a matter of putting in a redirect, that could have been done without a TRS thread.

This is a trope using the dictionary definition of the word. A redirect isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't need a rename.