Wednesday, August 31, 2005
“On Language” 8/31: “Gone Missing” and Other Language Mysteries
Fussiness about grammar has gone missing
‘On Language’
Chicago Tribune
August 31, 2005
By Nathan Bierma
temp.link/perm.link
Readers send both questions and answers by e-mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). First the questions:
Q. In the last three or four years, I’ve noticed news media using the phrase “went missing” to describe a disappearance, as in, “A child went missing today” rather than “A child is missing today.” I have always assumed “went missing” to be informal slang or a colloquial expression, not a part of the more formal grammar generally used by the media. Have I missed a shift in “correct” grammar?
—Elaine Truver, Chicago
A. This is the most common question sent in by e-mail. A search of the LexisNexis news database suggests the use of “went missing” and “gone missing” has increased slightly but steadily over the last 10 years. But the phrase is well over a century old. In a column on “gone missing” last year, the New York Times’ William Safire quoted the BBC News Styleguide as saying, “`Go missing’ is inelegant and unpopular with many people, but its use is widespread. There are no easy synonyms.” At least not in news reporting, where the phrase is used specifically to describe a sudden and suspicious disappearance. “Is missing” doesn’t do the job. Incidentally, what about the BBC Styleguide’s seemingly redundant phrase “unpopular with many people”? So much for language fussiness! ...
Arnold Zwicky advises:
my impression that this was originally british—i recall being
struck by it on my first visits to the u.k., back in the 70s—seems
to be supported by others’ observations, for example the discussion inhttp://www.businessballs.com/clichesorigins.htm
(alphabetized under “missing”)
mildly entertaining discussion on the Vocabula Review website:
http://www.vocabula.com/forum/showmessage.asp?forumID=2&messageID=1218
Merriam-Webster Online identifies it as “chiefly British”.
as does Safire, as quoted by Mark Liberman in a lengthy LLog posting
of 6/30/04:http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001142.html
Meanwhile, one reader asks,
Wouldn’t “unpopular with many people” be considered more paradoxical than redundant? Just wondering.
Indeed it could. The BBC was using the word to mean “unfavorable,” but the meaning of “lacking popular support” could be seen as contradictory to “many people.” I was thinking of “unpopular with many people” as “not having the support of many people among many people.”
Meanwhile, there’s more on “adding S” here.