springing a leak

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> >  Here's a strange headline.
>> >
>> > http://bit.ly/cIuM0f
>> > NSA Executive Leaked After Official Reporting Process Failed Him |
>> > Threat Level | Wired.com
>> >
>> > Normally, it wouldn't be necessary to assume that it was classified
>> > information (or documents) that was leaked by an official, but, in this
>> > headline, the object is missing completely. So it sounds like the
>> > "Executive" may have sprung a leak.
>
> The object deletion strikes me as typical headline-ese (if a bit
> crash-blossom-y). Here's more intransitive leaking from Politico:
>
> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39011.html
> JournoList wonders who leaked
>
> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27414.html
> A D.C. whodunit: Who leaked and why?

It's not just headline-ese. Here's William Safire in a 1982 "On
Language" column, quoting the late Daniel Schorr:

---
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/14/magazine/on-language-by-william-safire.html
''Originally, when information 'leaked,' '' observes Daniel Schorr,
the Cable News Network senior correspondent who helped raise
leak-inducing to a fine art in Washington, ''it was thought of as an
accidental seepage - a lost document, a chauffeur's unwary anecdote,
loose lips in the Pentagon. Today, when information 'is leaked,' it is
a witting (if sometimes witless) action. One leaks (active) to float
or sink an idea, aggrandize self (the 'senior official on the
Secretary's plane') or derogate an opponent.''
---

And later in the column:

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The TV networks have caught on to the pejorative quality of ''leak''
and have adopted their own locution to signal exclusivity: ''ABC has
learned.'' That means ''somebody leaked.''
---


--Ben Zimmer

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