Sowing Your Wild Oats
Wild oats, or the "crop that one will regret sowing," was first used in the 1560s to refer to the folly of sowing them instead of good grain. Protestant clergyman Thomas Becon is attributed to having said a variation of this phrase first.
This exact phrase was supposedly first said in 1952. The expression means to pursue a useless endeavor. Farmers have long hated wild oats because they are a useless crop and hard to separate from cultivated oats.
Also, there is a sexual connotation attached to the idiom that implies that a young man is spreading his seeds without purpose. If a man sows his wild oats, he has a period of his life when he does a lot of exciting things and engages in non-monogamous, often elicit sexual relationships.
Wendell Smith
What about a Meat and Potato type guy? Or Chopped Liver? or Sour Grapes? Or Plain Vanilla? The list could go on.....
The Reluctant Gourmet
Yes Wendell, all great and I will work on the etymologies of them so we know where they came from. Thanks for sending these in.