Tuesday, January 6, 2009

You Lost Me There

"Ala. policeman feared missing arrested in Vegas"
"Feared" missing? You might be "feared dead", but we know you are missing; the definition of missing is "not able to be found". Would you now say, "I know where he is, I fear he might not be missing"? Drop the "feared" and you have room to spell out the state "Missing Alabama Policeman Arrested In Las Vegas", which is even better because you've missed the confusing adverb-adjective-verb combo "feared missing arrested" mess in there.
So what I really liked about all this was the sentence used to illustrate the second definition of "missing":
"lacking: nonexistent; 'the thumb is absent'." What? Who says a sentence like "the thumb is absent"? And, really, the word you are supposed to be illustrating is "missing", not absent. I fear the logic is absent, not there, lacking, um, what's the word I want?

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