Do not address any German as "Gutmensch"! Ever!
Let's defrag the compound before we explain. "Gut" is "good", "Mensch" is "Person, or Mensch".
Put it together, and you get an insult.
That's right, Gutmensch is an insult, kind of an anti-German member of the kumbaya brigade, someone who puts the well-being of any stray foreigner over the well-being of any German. Beyond the xenophobic, Gutmenschen are all those throwing their support behind any lost cause irregardless of the rational or of common sense.
The tricky thing about this term is that it is awfully close to a compliment. If you want to tell that German friend of yours that he or she is a good person, you'd say something like "du bist ein guter Mensch".
See, there is "gut" and "Mensch".
What a difference a space makes.
If using Gutmensch to insult a single German is not enough, no worry, there is a modified term to insult the whole darned segment of Gutmenschen in the population.
The plural "Gutmenschen" is okay, but to really alienate enough people, use "Gutmenschentum".
The suffix "-tum" gives any word a more comprehensive, more abstract and thus more elevated meaning with more authority to it.
The adventurous among you who know how to use Twitter or the FBook might be tempted to tweet something with "Gutmenschentum" in it.
Do not do it!
We have more than 30 years of combined experience in linguistic special effects, and if we tell you not to do it, you should heed the advice.
[Update 5/18/2017] For unknown reasons, German liberal weekly DIE ZEIT had a major piece on "Gutmenschen" in today's print edition. They were nice enough to put one of the articles on their web site. The paper chose the persona of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons as the embodiment of a Gutmensch.
The subtitle of the paper says "Whey they are a pain - and yet we need them".
No comments:
Post a Comment