Word Reference: I Recommend

I found a wonderful website--no, it's not this one--for questions and discussions regarding grammar and usage, not just in English, but in Italian, French, German, Chinese, etc. . Some of the participants have lots to teach and are happy to teach it, to correct your errors and assumptions--and just as many are just happy to learn from them or shrug their shoulders at them.

Do check it out: http://forum.wordreference.com/

Turnip Missing

Reporters, you've just got to stop announcing that people "turn up missing." It's too trendy, too lazy. Not only that, but no one seems to know where the term came from or why you keep using it. Well, well, aren't we in luck, because I have a guess.

Could it be that the term comes to us in its present disturbingly awkward form from Latinate speakers of American English who are used to the more natural (to them), "it is missing to me" or "they are missing to me"? 

"Mi manchi" (It) or "Tu me manques" (Fr): I miss you, literally, you are missing to me.

"Que te falta?" (Sp) What do you need? Literally, "What is missing to you?"

Add that to the perfectly acceptable English or Latinate "to find oneself" (in a hole or at a loss or lost) and it's an easy slide into the linguistic uglies.

But, I'm just guessing.