Is it proper English to say someone went missing?

Answer 1

To "go missing" is colloquial: acceptable in speech but not in writing.

It is proper English if it was a planned happening or event. However, in the contact of someone disappearing it is not proper English. A single word "disappeared" would be better, less words and more accurate of the event being described.

Answer 2

Yes this phrase is grammatically correct. Here are two sentences for you to look at :

a) My toy is missing.

b) Tony was skiing on the Alps when he suddenly went missing.

Put simply, you can use the second form when a person or thing is lost in transit to some place.

Answer 3

What is the difference between missing and went missing?

It is a Britishism or Briticism, and was adopted by American journalists because it's different and probably because it sounds British. Not everyone is happy with it. James Kilpatrick, noted word-warrior, has this:"'Went missing' should go missing": Chicago Sun-Times, Apr 17, 2005 by James J. Kilpatrick

The primary objection to "went missing" or "turned up missing" is that it makes no syntactical sense. It is all very well to say that Dagwood "went sailing or that Cathy "went swimming," for we understand the underlying infinitive form. They have gone to sail or gone to swim, but how does a fugitive go to miss?

The only kind thing that can be said of the idiomatic "gone missing" is that the irksome construction is well-understood. We grasp what the writer or speaker is trying to say, to wit, "She isn't here." The same faint praise could be heaped upon "It doesn't make any difference how we treat those parts of speech."

He mentions "turned up missing" in the same sentence as "went missing," but the expressions have a different history. "Turned up missing," however preposterous it may sound has a long history on the American continent. Both are easily understood; "turned up missing" is understood as "turned out to be missing," which is further understood as "a search for him turned up the fact that he is no longer present."

There is actually a use for "went missing." It permits one to say WHEN his absence was noted or can be deduced, and avoids certain circumlocutions that would probably make better grammatical sense. Or possibly not. Is it better to say "he became missing sometime after 6 pm"? Or "he was observed to be missing late yesterday." Perhaps the purists would prefer, "It was noticed that he was not present...."

One first heard "went missing" a few years ago. It can be construed as parallel to "went crazy" and "went pale." That is, no infinitive is implied, as Kilpatrick says one is in "went swimming" and "went sailing." "Missing" is an adjective here, albeit a participial one. Kilpatrick sounds crusty about usage.

So many expressions in English are illogical by strict analysis that it's a very arcane argument in most cases. Compare 'get' or got' which are part of our everyday usage, but which horrify the purists. 'I got dressed' - in theory that means that you acquired dressed - nonsense, but we use it just the same!