Cliché: don’t reinvent the wheel

(entered for 12.03.05)

Meaning: don’t remake something so simple and so successful. Usage examples.
Rewrite 1: don’t square^tv1 the circle
Rewrite 2: don’t reinvent the flame¹
Rewrite 3: you can only replace a wheel with another wheel
Rewrite 4: a wheel is a wheel is a wheel; to redesign it is redundant^1c
Rewrite 5: a “better” window is still a window

Comment: It’s easy to get sidetracked by this rewrite. Keep it simple … and don’t reinvent the wheel.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Not-so-grand List of Overused Fantasy Cliches, “a special subset of cliches I like to call the Van Helsing Rules”.