it's a real term but it's not a useful term to engineers. there is no such thing as a "data lake system". there are databases, filesystems, object stores, etc. where the term 'data lake' is actually useful is in describing a logical system that holds data pulled from all over the company together into one place to non-technical people. inevitably the actual implementation will be a dozen or more different cobbled together systems and technologies, but if you try to explain that to your finance team their eyes will glaze over immediately, hence the need for the term 'data lake'.

If your data lake becomes stagnant, it becomes a data swamp.

Found this to be a good explanation of data lakes IMO: https://databricks.com/discover/data-lakes/introduction

Wait until you hear the term Data Lakehouse - the combination of data lake and warehouse :-)

That said, both lakes and lakehouses are very valid ideas and not buzzwords !

On the bright side I'm interviewing with big corp Inc for a senior data position so just reading this is a sure fire way to get to third round.