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Obamamania: The English language, Barackafied

BarackyogenesisThe latest addition to Slate's dictionary of Obamaisms.

By Chris Wilson
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008, at 10:11 AM ET

Today's Obamaism:

Editor's note: Baryogenesis, the word this Obamaism is based on, refers to a cosmological theory for the genesis of matter in the universe—specifically, why there are more subatomic particles known as "baryons" than there are "anti-baryons," resulting in residual matter. While this is hardly a household term, the analogy submitted by reader James Norman of Atlanta was simply too good to pass up.

Barackyogenesis (buh-RAK-ee-oh-JEN-uh-sis) n. An attempt to explain why there were more Barackyons than anti-Barackyons in the Democratic Party, a condition necessary for the formation of heavier election matters.

Example: There must be some initial perturbation to explain the Barackyogenesis problem. Many political scientists have suggested that an imbalanced density of subatomic particles known as "charm quarks" in the candidates led to the dominance of Barackyons over anti-Barackyons.

Since Slate first launched its Encyclopedia Baracktannica in February, more than 800 readers have written in with their own Obamaisms, from "Barack Ness Monster" to "Post-Baracalyptic." The best of these entries, along with Slate's original Obama neologisms, are collected in a new book: Obamamania! The English Language, Barackafied, available now.

In conjunction with the publication of the book, we will be publishing a new Obamaism every morning and adding it to the Obamamania widget above, which you can add to your Facebook or MySpace profile or Web site.

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Chris Wilson is an editorial assistant at Slate in Washington, D.C.
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