Go ahead and “go to seed”

Laura Young ECB Publishing, Inc. Since the mid 1800s or so, Americans have used the phrase “gone to seed” figuratively as a way to disparage something or someone that has, according to the Collins English Dictionary, “become much less attractive, healthy or efficient.” Ye old faithful Miriam-Webster Dictionary gives the idiom even more negative connotations of “dilapidated” or “neglected.” I've used the phrasing myself more than a time or two, for example to describe a “seedy” place I wouldn't want to visit. Overall, though, I can't quite fathom how the seed-producing phase of life has come to get such a bad rap. What would summer be without sweet, sweet corn? What's