So why's it called Hold Monster then? (linguistic pedantry warning)

[Lheticus]

I didn't know where best to post this, but in the end it was a question about D&D that occurred to me because of the OOTS comic, not a question about the comic that occurred to me because of D&D, so I felt here would be at least acceptable? Anyway:

If Hold Monster, in the rules, holds everything instead of specifically holding monsters, why is it still called Hold Monster? I mean, even just off the top of my head I figure you could have a Hold Person that holds people, Hold Monster that holds monsters, and then you just rebrand the original Hold Monster as "Greater Holding" or the like. So it's not as though there aren't alternatives that make more sense in plain English than this does. Just saying.

Unless there's already a Greater Holding and it already does something else. Then my alternative idea is kind of shot.

[Draconi Redfir]

Not all monsters are people.

but all people are monsters.

[Cerefel]

Yeah, everything has an entry in a monster manual (or similar) so an appropriate catch-all term for creatures is "monster"

[Gallowglass]

Really its just tradition.

Hold Person and Hold Monster are spells that exist way back in basic D&D did you know there were like 8 spells of each level for clerics and 12 for wizards (or something like that. It was a very limited selection) in Basic?

Back then it did just that. Hold Person worked on, well, humanoids (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) and Hold Monster worked on the monster manual entries.

In later editions they made the more judicious approach of limiting hold person to X HD and hold monster to more than X HD. At that point, they could've renamed it to Hold creature and Greater Hold creature or something like that but they just kept the names as they existed for tradition's sake.

[Mike Miller]

Not all monsters are people.

but all people are monsters.

This. Also, I need to sig this later. Best when taken out of context

[gkathellar]

Not all monsters are people.

but all people are monsters.

QFT. It’s the obvious inference.

[Jay R]

Because a spell name isn't a full description; it's a quick and easy reference, and Hold Monster is usually used to hold the creatures that you think of as monsters. It's the only spell that could have held the entire party, including the cat.

And also because "monster" is used in D&D as a catch-all term for the various creatures that you might encounter. Even back in original D&D (even before Basic D&D), the list of monsters in the pamphlet Monsters & Treasure started with Men, then lists several other humanoids (goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, etc.) before getting to the giants, undead, classical monsters, heraldic monsters, and others.