German 4 Dummies: Putinversteher

Now that the West's current favorite punching bag, RussPutin, is back, we can finally bring you another German 4 Dummies term: Putinversteher.

It is a compound of, obviously, the last name of Mr. Putin, dutifully transcribed into a Latin version, plus "Versteher". Versteher is a made up noun based on the verb verstehen, to understand, and is used exclusively in compounds.

We will freely admit that The Economist beat us to explaining the term to the English speaking world. But we diverge from The Economist after the first paragraph, when the venerable econ rag launches into political intricacies and accusations.

Our topic is the language and its use.

The Economist says "Versteher" generally mix flattery with irony, but we have to disagree. The term really mixes irony with disdain, and the more controversial the subject is, the more pronounced the disgust. While, for example, Frauenversteher (he who understands women) is mostly irony with a pinch of disgust, the term Putinversteher is a term of attack and disdain, as close to any insult as you can get without resorting to one of the charming words from TV's bleeped or banned words list.

The great thing about Versteher is that you can make up your own terms as you please.

This expands you German vocabulary immensely without any effort. You don't know how to tell your kid coming home from school that he behaves like a teacher's pet?

Lehrerversteher would do fine. Though it is of course not a translation of "teacher's pet" it does capture the adulation your offspring will exhibit towards the teacher.

Telling a coworker that he is a Chefversteher may solve the problem of you not knowing how to say brown nosing in German. Of course, saying either may well create a whole slew of problems for you in the workplace, but, hey, at least you got to stand up to the man.

Versteher can be combined with any other noun, you can have Katzenversteher (he who understands cats), Hundeversteher (dogs),  Baumversteher (trees), and so forth.

If you have the desire to go all out on understanding, you could try Uberversteher, which combines the americanized version of "über" with the newly learned Versteher.

Applying this to Mr. Putin, you can impress your German friends with Putinuberversteher!

That, unlike the original Putinversteher, gets a bit of the irony back which is do dear to The Economist.

If you think the blogster is an Economist-Versteher, you may have a point.