A phantonym is a word that appears to mean one thing, but in fact means another.
The term was coined by Jack Rosenthal in his 2009 article for the NY Times. [1] An example of phantonym usage noted in the article was when Barack Obama said, "I just want to make sure that we're having an honest debate and presenting to the American people a fulsome accounting of what is going on in this program," where he meant "full" instead of "fulsome". [2] Phantonyms are usually commonly confused words. Then, in 2006, author Kit Whitfield used it with a meaning closer to the current one; she described it as "The feeling you get when you're searching for the perfect word: that there's a perfect word for this concept that's not in the thesaurus, but you can't quite remember it...and you're forced to go with a slightly wrong word." [3]
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American retired politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and previously worked as a civil rights lawyer before entering politics.
The oath of office of the president of the United States is the oath or affirmation that the president of the United States takes upon assuming office. The wording of the oath is specified in Article II, Section One, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution, and a new president must take it before exercising or carrying out any official powers or duties.
"Internets", also known as "The Internets", is a Bushism-turned-catchphrase used humorously to portray the speaker as ignorant about the Internet or about technology in general, or alternatively as having a provincial or folksy attitude toward technology. Former United States President George W. Bush first used the word publicly during the 2000 election campaign. The term gained cachet as an Internet humor meme following Bush's use of the term in the second 2004 presidential election debate on October 8, 2004.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is an American attorney and author who served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 as the wife of former President Barack Obama. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
This article lists potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election. After Illinois Senator Barack Obama became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee on June 3, 2008, Obama formed a small committee, made up of James A. Johnson, Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, to help him select a running mate. Veteran Democratic lawyer and advisor James "Jim" Hamilton, of the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, later replaced Johnson in vetting candidates.
"A More Perfect Union" is the title of a speech delivered by then-Senator Barack Obama on March 18, 2008, in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Speaking before an audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Obama was responding to a spike in the attention paid to controversial remarks made by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech, a participant in his campaign. Obama framed his response in terms of the broader issue of race in the United States. The speech's title was taken from the Preamble to the United States Constitution.
The United States Senate career of Barack Obama began on January 3, 2005, and ended on November 16, 2008. He resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate upon being elected President of the United States. Obama previously served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2005.
The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama's immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and are the first such family of African-American descent. His immediate family includes his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha Obama.
Abon'go Malik "Roy" Obama is a Kenyan-American businessman and politician known for being the older half-brother of 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, and the eldest son of economist Barack Obama Sr.
Barack Obama, who served as the 44th President of the United States, has elicited a number of public perceptions regarding his personality and background. As the first African-American President of the United States, his race and culture played a prominent role, both positively and negatively.
Anita Dunn is an American political strategist serving as a senior advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, having originally held the post from January 20, 2021 to August 12, 2021, and returning May 5, 2022.
The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate, by author David Freddoso, is a bestselling book published in late 2008, providing a critical examination of the life and opinions of the then United States presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama.
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, commonly known as "Joe the Plumber", is an American conservative activist and commentator. He gained national attention during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign season when, during a videotaped campaign stop in Ohio by then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama, Wurzelbacher raised concerns that Obama's tax policy would increase taxes on small business owners. Wurzelbacher is a member of the Republican Party.
During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citizenship – efforts eventually known as the "birther movement", by which name it is widely referred to across media. The movement falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the Constitution. Birther conspiracy theories were predominantly held by conservatives and Republicans, as well as racists.
The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" is a 2009 non-fiction book edited by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, author of several books on race and director of Vanderbilt University's African American and Diaspora Studies, concerning the "A More Perfect Union" speech of then-Senator Barack Obama.
The Barack Obama "Hope" poster is an image of US president Barack Obama designed by American artist Shepard Fairey. The image was widely described as iconic and came to represent Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. It is a stylized stencil portrait of Obama in solid red, beige and blue, with the word "progress", "hope", or "change" below.
The 2010 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts was a special election held on January 19, 2010, in order to fill the Massachusetts Class I United States Senate seat for the remainder of the term ending January 3, 2013. It was won by Republican candidate Scott Brown.
The Almanac of American Politics (2008) rated Barack Obama's overall social policies in 2006 as more conservative than 21% of the Senate, and more liberal than 77% of the Senate.
Allegations that Barack Obama secretly practices Islam, or that he is the antichrist of Christian eschatology, or covertly holds some other esoteric religious position, have been suggested since he campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and proliferated after his election as President of the United States in 2008. As with conspiracy theories surrounding his citizenship status, the claims are promoted by various political opponents, with American bloggers and conservative talk radio hosts particularly promoting the theories.