Ahem.
‘Went missing’ has been used in the UK for many years as a rueful way of suggesting that something has been stolen or ‘ferreted away’ somewhere (the anthrax went missing sometime during the last ten years). Occasionally this may be applied to an individual who has disappeared but strictly that should only be if the disappearence was deliberate, probably for tactical or strategic reasons on the domestic or legal fronts (John went missing for a week after his contretemps with Sally and June). Its present usage would not include the sense of missing in action.
I tried Googling the expression and none of the instances I found where it had been used for ‘missing in action’ were on sites from the UK – not that this means anything, I’m just saying…
There are many sites that, irritatingly, assume you know their place of origin when in fact it takes some detective work to discover it, through spelling habits or chance references. This really struck home a couple of days back when a post from WW about pitcher plants had me clicking through various sites that all used terms such as ‘native’ or ‘one of our few insectivorous plants’ without specifically identifying the country of origin.
