Another meaningless irritation has crowded my thoughts. I read a headline:

21-year-old sailor Angelina Resendiz goes missing from Navy barracks in Virginia

My thoughts traveled the well-used circuits of curiosity and concern along the lines of, what happened to her, and I hope she’s alright.

Another part of me rose up with irritation about ‘goes missing’.

I know. It’s a well-established idiom but it annoys me. It’s right up there with ‘I was thinking in my head’. I’ll spare you my irritation with that one. ‘Gone’ missing and its companion phrases like ‘went’ missing irk me. They’re added and unneeded words. They’re unthinking words to me and don’t add understanding. If anything, using that idiom distracts from the news being imparted because some of us pause to note they’ve used the idiom, which is pretty lazy writing.

Anyway, I hope the culinary specialist is found safe. I would add, ‘unharmed’ because that’s what I often read. But…well, you can probably guess why I don’t.