The current obsession with "Gone Missing"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I can't say when I first heard/read "gone missing."  For some reason I
associate it with missing ships during WWII.

Sounds fine to me.  If it really is running riot in the media (maybe so,
maybe not), I suspect one reason may be that it's shorter than "reported
missing."  It also avoids the passive voice, one of the top taboos of
second-rate writers.  Finally, it sounds (at least to me) a little spooky:
it seems to emphasize (maybe through greater concision and the suggestion of
motion) that the thing/person really, really should be there. But isn't.

JL


On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: The current obsession with "Gone Missing"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 7, 2009, at 5:53 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > At 6/7/2009 07:47 AM, Robert Hartwell Fiske wrote:
> >> "Gone" or "went" missing is dreadfully popular today. Everyone from
> >> reporters on "CNN" to detectives (or their writers) on "Without a
> >> Trace" now prefer
> >> it.
> >
> > Did it become prevalent in English at the time of the "disappeared"
> > of South American dictatorships?
>
> no.  see my previous postings.  its spread in the U.S. seems to be
> relatively recent, though.
>
> joel then goes on to say some sensible things about meaning and to
> express doubts about Fiske's claim that "go missing" is driving out
> the alternatives.  i too doubt this.  i suspect that this impression
> (and the idea that there is a "current obsession" with the expression)
> is an instance of the frequency illusion: people notice most of the
> occurrences that come past them (because the idiom strikes them as
> odd) and don't notice occurrences of the alternatives.
>
> arnold
>
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