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Now you see it...Should ‘go missing' just vanish? «I asked Lynne Murphy, an American-born linguist and blogger who teaches in England, for her impressions of how go missing is used in its native land. She too believes that using go missing “makes an event seem less mysterious than ‘disappear' or ‘vanish,' which somehow have a whiff of the supernatural about them.†»
If the tv remote is gone, I either say it is gone, or I say that it is missing. To me, it's redundant to say that it's gone missing.
It just sounds a little silly. It's something I'd expect to see in a comedy based in the south. "I saw some giant fish come out of the lake and now Uncle Joe's gone missing!"
🙂
I don't find “gone missing†troubling. I use it. I find it neatly fills a semantic void that is not captured so neatly by the alternatives. It suggests whereabouts known in the past, but unknown in the present.
The context can make the suggestion of past whereabouts redundant at times, as in Darrell's example of the TV remote, at other times it can be used to remove some ambiguity:
“I just unpacked the new TV and the remote is missing.â€
To me, in the above example, it is unclear if the remote ever was in the box, or if it got unpacked, and now can't be found. Of course, that ambiguity might be just what I need, since I may well be unsure which it is.
“I just unpacked the new TV and the remote has gone missing.â€
In the above example, I make it clear that the remote was present, but now can't be found.
“Gone†(alone) suggests it is not nearby — not usually the case with my remote. (Well, once my son drove off with it. Then it was gone.) Usually it is about 3 feet from me buried in the armchair (or davenport).
“Vanished†and “Disappeared†can certainly be used appropriately here, but I tend to use them more in the “before my very eyes†sense. I guess that is the “supernatural†suggestion mentioned above.
So I find “gone missing†quite useful at times. I don't think Uncle Joe has gone missing at all: I think he is gone.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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