Who Went Missing - Another Exercise in English

I was asked to write a bit on a phrase that grates on people's nerves. 

English is a fun language.  Where else in the world do we complain when people don't speak our language correctly yet make it difficult for them to figure us out at the same time.  We use cliches that make no sense to the outside observer.  We use phrases like "He always talks behind my back." Wrong, if he is talking behind your back, then he is really talking in front of you.   Our media personalities and politicians badly fumble our language, and they were born into it in most cases. We use the same sounding word with different meanings, our language is gender neutral versus most foreign languages, and cliches and colloquialisms that seemingly make no sense. We may have read a book but the book may be yellow, blue or black, not red. I could be a well read, red faced, hooligan attempting to read red words.


 Imagine someone trying to figure out English reading the following Headlines.  They must think we are nuts. 

"Death In The Ring: Most boxers are not the same afterward"

"If the baby does not thrive on fresh milk, it should be boiled."

"Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over"


We butcher our language daily and none more often than public figures.  There are great examples of bloopers out there.

Debating John McCain, Bush made this point: “I think we agree, the past is over.” He then complained the Arizona senator “can’t take the high horse and then claim the low road.” I won't bother going through the jumbled speech patterns of Bush since that has been done before, and even to music.

Gore told an audience, “My mother always made it clear to my sister and me that women and men were equal — if not more so.”

Bill Clinton is claimed to be the consummate public speaker, but at the University of Hawaii in 1992, Clinton told students, “This is still the greatest country in the world, if we just will steel our wills and lose our minds.” I think he proved his point about lost minds with Monica.  It seems to be contagious based upon Hillary's continued marriage to him.

And that brings us to Dan Quayle.  We all know about the potatoe but do we remember his thoughts on geography: “I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.” or the environment, “It isn’t pollution that is harming our environment. It’s impurities in our air and water ” or parenting  “Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child,” and finally and science, “For NASA, space is still a high priority.”

As I see it, the problem is that people want to look intelligent and instead of using simple words, like me instead of myself, we grab a dictionary and come out with gibberish that makes us look like English is not our primary language, as we speak before we think of what we should say.  That old saying that God gave us two ears and one mouth so we can hear twice as much as we say is ignored by all of us. 

But I digress.  As it turns out, "went missing" is proper, albeit old English, and not really American English.  To quote an expert -

The originsof 'go missing', gone missing', and 'went missing' are English (British English language), not American nor Canadian, as some have suggested. The common interpretation describes someone or something when they not shown up as expected, in which case it simply refers to the person having 'gone' (past tense of 'go'), ie., physically moved elsewhere by some method or another, and being 'missing' (= absent), ie., not being where they should be or expected to be (by other or others).

Most sources seem to suggest 'disappeared' as the simplest single word alternative. The expression is very occasionally used also in a metaphorical sense to describe someone not paying attention or failing to attend to a task, which is an allusion to their mind or attention being on something other than the subject or issue at hand (in the same way that 'AWOL', 'gone walkabouts' might also be used).

I've heard it suggested that the 'gone' part is superfluous, but in my opinion 'gone missing' more precisely describes the state of being simply just 'missing', the former conveying a sense of being more recently, and by implication, concerningly, 'missing'. 'Went missing' is another similar version of the same expression.

Thinking I was not fully researching it, I checked the Grammar Girl who had posted on this topic years ago.

The reason went missing sounds strange to Americans is that it's a British idiom (1, 2). I've seen sources placing the first use of went missing as far back as 1944 (3), but my version of the Oxford English Dictionary places the first use in a 1958 book by British writer Norman Franks (4). The OED places gone missing in the same category as the phrase go native, which is used to describe a turn to or relapse into savagery or heathenism. I've also heard the term go native used to describe the transition a newcomer to Washington D.C. undergoes as he or she accepts the government bureaucracy, which I suppose could be considered turning to savagery or heathenism

As she says, while it definitely riles the hackles on some people's backs, it is correct use, just not normal American-ese use.  It is found in the Oxford English Dictionary and other commonly used sources. 
 
I did find another source that said it is wrong and gives a long explanation that seems right.  While it might be technically correct, there are always idioms and exceptions that make the rules wrong (just to confuse any non-English speakers further).  There are rules today, but the rules change with time, so it might be right and it might be wrong.  Today it might be right and tomorrow wrong, so WTF.
 
As if this isn't enough to confuse people, we now have people using AIM-speak as if it were real!  I have heard people that will use IRL for in real life and FYI, ASAP for real words.  Let's just make it impossible for anyone to speak our language and make a law that says you must speak English.  Those of us that are older than 15 will end up being deported.  AFAIK those of us over 35 would be in trouble.
 
Not for Nothing, I dislike the sound of Went Missing too.