ball and chain vs task

ball and chain

noun
  • Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities. 

  • One's wife, as a symbol of restraint. 

  • A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint. 

task

noun
  • An objective. 

  • Any piece of work done. 

  • A difficult or tedious undertaking. 

  • A process or execution of a program. 

  • A piece of work done as part of one’s duties. 

verb
  • To charge, as with a fault. 

  • To assign a task to, or impose a task on. 

  • To oppress with severe or excessive burdens; to tax 

How often have the words ball and chain and task occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )