If you happen to be friends with newspaper editors (as we happen to be), you will find that some of them have very strong opinions about phrases and phrases that you pay little attention to. . Sometimes they don’t like these phrases so strongly that you start to wonder if you should completely remove it from your vocabulary. Which phrases should be missing?
Although many editors despise the word ‘missing’, the phrase fulfills an important semantic function.
For beginners, go missing. This is an annoying phrase for many US editors, and the reasons behind the annoyance are certainly a) it’s new and b) it’s a British import.
Neither of these reasons is entirely correct. Go missing (in all its conjugations Go) has been used in writing for the past 170 years and the earliest evidence lexicographers have found to date suggests it has its first origins in American English. That said, the phrase has been in greater use in the last few decades of the 20th century, which leads people to believe that it is new and more common in British English sources than in American English sources. Those who complain that British English has no place on American shores should probably pause and consider the exact origins of English.
There are others who try to prove their loyalty by claiming that go missing grammatically incorrect: that gerund (which is a substitute noun) like running And fishing Can follow Gobut participles (which are alternative adjectives) like missing cannot. This is generally a twaddle: simply because Go Not paired with more than one participle doesn’t mean it’s not paired with a participle like missing. There are other idioms combined Go with participles, and some of them are much older than go missing:
When a Shipp sets sail, and Sheate is redirected, wee saie she will redirect. — Henry Mainwaring, Nomenclature Navalis1625
A slip could soon occur, bringing a man to a halt shortly afterwards. —Thomas Boston, Scammers in the lot1732
Railing against go missing is relatively recent and appears to be a breakthrough for the journalism industry: AP Style Book recommend everyone to use disappear or disappear instead of. Still others recommend missing instead of missing or missing. Not yet go missing actually fulfills an important semantic function that no other alternative does: it subtly signals that the disappearance of a person or thing may be intentional (“My cat has went missing over the weekend, but returned home on Monday.”) either unintentionally (“My keys are gone.”), or voluntarily (“As the conversation turned to politics, Uncle John’s suddenly disappeared.”) or involuntarily (“The football trophies disappeared from display cases over the weekend.”). disappear And disappear are not terrible substitutes, although there are things that link them to acts of sinister (“The Children Disappear”) or magic (“The Rabbit Disappears in a Smoke.”). Especially for press reporters, go missing is a handy fence that announces that the full details of someone or something’s disappearance are unknown.
should you avoid? go missing? Not unless you write for a newspaper and you know your editor doesn’t like the phrase. It is purely idiomatic in American (and British) English.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
