Gone to seed

[nq:1]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
I like the second part of Per's question. Is there indeed a "universal" English?

Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.tripod.com

[nq:1]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
From MWCD10 at www.m-w.com:
- go to seed or run to seed 1 : to develop seed 2 : DECAY

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

[nq:2]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
[nq:1]From MWCD10 at www.m-w.com: - go to seed or run to seed 1 : to develop seed 2 : DECAY[/nq]
I believe the original reference is to a farmed field in which no effort has been made to prevent the female plants from being fertilized.

Mike Nitabach

[nq:1]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
It's a farming metaphor. It means that something is old and past its best.
Some plants are grown for flowers or tubers - if you let them go to seed then they have grown older than the optimum.
There is also the word "seedy" which means several things, amongst them old, worn out or shabby. Whet

[nq:1]I believe the original reference is to a farmed field in which no effort has been made to prevent the female plants from being fertilized.[/nq]
I learned from the Straight Dope today that you don't want to eat an apple grown from seed:
If you took Pomology 101, you'd learn that apples don't "grow true" from seeds. An apple tree grown from a seed bears little resemblance to its parent

[nq:2]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
[nq:1]I like the second part of Per's question. Is there indeed a "universal" English?[/nq]
Well, I was thinking as opposed to dialectal. That is, is this phrase used in certain locations only?

Per Johansson

[nq:2]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
[nq:1]It's a farming metaphor. It means that something is old and past its best. Some plants are grown for flowers ... "seedy" which means several things, amongst them old, worn out or shabby. Whether this is related, I do not know.[/nq]
I had understood it correctly then. However, my knowledge ab

[nq:2]I believe the original reference is to a farmed field in which no effort has been made to prevent the female plants from being fertilized.[/nq]
[nq:1]I learned from the Straight Dope today that you don't want to eat an apple grown from seed: If you ... graft trees, producing a clone of a tree that you know bears tasty fruit, rather than plant from seeds.

[nq:1]What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or universal English?[/nq]
In passing, ???? ('gone') is Greek for ?generation, seed?.

SOED5, with no regional marking, has
go to seed, ?grow to seed
(a) (of a plant) cease flowering as seeds develop; (b) /fig./ become habitually unkempt, ineffective, etc.; deteriorate.

Martin Ambuhl

[nq:1]Some plants are grown for flowers or tubers - if you let them go to seed then they have grown older than the optimum.[/nq]
In the case of vegetables, onions in particular, what happens is that they flower and produce seed prematurely, which takes strength from the bulb, reducing the value of the onion.
Google on "onion "go to seed"" and you'll find lots of references. For example: