This article will not consider the history or etymology of this word - we will talk about those variants of the use of this word that are most often heard. The most popular interpretations of this term are described below.
general characteristics
This may surprise someone, but "sink" is a fairly old word that has many meanings. Its original meaning had nothing to do with Internet culture at all and was used, as a rule, only in domestic conditions.
"Drain" - the meaning and use of the word in everyday life
As mentioned earlier, this expression is most often used by ordinary people, rather than active online users who spend all day on the Internet.
From the point of view of ordinary people, a sink is:
- transfusion or pouring of liquid. Example: discharge of gasoline;
- action accompanied by mixing of two substances. Example: draining water from two buckets into one can;
- plumbing fixture for flushing water or any other liquid. Example: flushing the toilet;
- A term that describes the dynamics of water movement. Example: waterfall discharge;
- part of the hydraulic mechanism. Example: dam discharge.
For completeness, it is also worth mentioning the narrower circles of people who put a completely different meaning in this word. For example, paragliders (athletes involved in controlling the paraglider) by this term mean a drop in height, and in bariatrics (section of surgery) it means getting rid of the fat layer by means of surgical intervention.
Media use
You already know what a "drain" is in the usual sense of the word. Now it's time to find out in what context this expression is used in the media.
People who actively consume various media products may have noticed that journalism often uses the journalistic term "information leakage", which means the publication of facts and data previously kept a closely guarded secret. In a more understandable language, information drain is a deliberate leak of information. This expression has been actively used in Russian journalism since the mid 90s of the twentieth century.
For the first time, detailed information about this term appeared in the Dictionary of Russian Public Language at the End of the 20th Century, which was published in the publication Kommersant-Vlast. This dictionary indicates that the official "birth" of the expression occurred on April 23, 1995 during the broadcast of the "Results" program. The "father" of such a popular phrase was the military expert Alexander Zhilin, who used him in his commentary on the scandalous events that were relevant at that time.
The WikiLeaks project and the revelation of Edward Snowden are two of the most famous examples of information leakage, thanks to which millions of people learned secret state facts and received evidence of the surveillance of US intelligence by their citizens.
