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Catfish amendment: (noun) A seemingly friendly amendment designed to kill a bill by making it undesirable.

Chilipunked: (verb, past tense) To be left out of a news story, debate or other political event when one believes coverage is warranted, e.g. a Libertarian candidate.

Folks: (noun, plural) 1. A phrase used by North Carolina politicians to refer to almost any group of people. 2. Voters. 3. Fellow legislators. 4. One's political opponents. 5. The media. Example: "What folks in the press corps don't understand is that folks back home didn't send us folks up here to debate those folks on this issue." 

Seed corn: (noun) An item, such as spending in the budget, that could be eliminated or otherwise used foolishly now but would be better saved for the future.

Shampaign: (noun) A brief period in which potential candidates announce they are considering a run, garnering attention from the public and the media before saying they won't run after all.

"Chilipunked" has made it to Montana.

In his Watch Yer Language blog, Billings Gazette copy desk chief Craig Lancaster notes that he's run across the word on Under the Dome, via UNC-Chapel Hill professor Andy Bechtel's copy editor blog.

While I’m certainly not prepared to give chilipunked a free ride into print, it is an entertaining little word, one that I’d happily drop into a casual conversation with friends. A similar but more instantly decipherable word is weaksauce, one I use too often (but never, never, never in formal writing).

A few more references, and the word will be well-prepped for the 2050 edition of the O.E.D.

Dome has made no secret of our lifelong ambition to coin a word.

We just hoped it would be something more dignified than "chilipunked."

After Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger used the word in an e-mail to us Tuesday, we noted that we had no idea what he was talking about.

Munger claims that it's a variant of slang term familiar from the TV show "Punk'd," in which Ashton Kutcher humiliated celebrities by proving they were dumber than, well him.

His readers say the word is an alternate spelling of "chilly punked," or being "punkd in a particularly cold / brutal fashion." (Google gives just one example of this usage.)

But since our original post, an alternative meaning showed up on Urban Dictionary:

When a newspaper or other news media source does not mention your group in a story and you beleive said mention is warranted, you have been "chilipunked."

It's source: Dome.