What is the closest equivalent to "Armchair <profession>"?

Question

In English there’s the use of armchair as a modifier with a profession or occupation to ironically indicate that the person in question has mostly theoretical (and not necessarily expert) knowledge on a subject, lacking in practical on-the-ground experience. Examples include armchair linguist and armchair anthropologist.

What would be a good equivalent to a phrase like armchair psychologist in Russian?

Another similar expression to ironically refer to a person whose knowledge is purely theoretical is woolly academic, but I cannot find a Russian translation for that either.

Answer 1

There is an expression "диванный эксперт" ("the sofa expert"), I think it is almost the same. It could be applied to any profession. Also, there is another one expression - "диванные войска" ("the army on the sofa"), which means a group of people who are "experts" in military questions or a group of people supporting in internet one of sides of the war (a singular will be "диванный воин").

Answer 2

Кабинетный учёный (your case), паркетный генерал, комнатный (офисный) журналист.

There's even a publishing house ironically named "Кабинетный учёный":

http://www.armchair-scientist.ru/

Answer 3

I think "диванный" plays the same role in Russian:

Диванный аналитик
Диванный лингвист

Answer 4

As both Dmitrys have said, "диванный" is probably the closest match, however, there are other words in use, such as:

• "Кухонный". Used to call a person who's expertise is only "applicable" at his own kitchen (to be clear, it doesn't involve cooking or other legitimate kitchen activities). I think, there's an actual idiom "кухонный психолог", which, in my opinion, is more to the point than "диванный" - after all, what's so wrong with getting your knowledge of psychology by reading professional literature while sitting on a sofa? There is also "кухонный эксперт" (which, again, is not an expert on kitchen equipment). "Кухонный диссидент" was a popular expression in late Soviet time, for people who would criticize the regime from safety of their kitchens.

• "Доморощенный" (homegrown?) is similar to the above, but mostly used for occupations where formal training / official degree is deemed to be of most importance. E. g. "доморощенный специалист/эксперт/etc". For example, "кухонный политик" sounds pejorative, "доморощенный политик" - not quite so (yeah, of the people, for the people, what's wrong with that?). "Доморощенный нейрохирург", on the other hand...

• "*-теоретик", a deliberately absurd expression for occupations where "practice is everything", like "ёбарь-теоретик".

Answer 5

I think that "диванный" is a neologism, probably not more than 7-8 years old, and comes from the direct (admittedly, good) translation of "armchair". It is used mainly to refer to self-styled military specialists ("диванный генерал", "диванный вояка", "диванные войска") and/or self-styled experts ("диванный эксперт", "диванный аналитик").

In contemporary Russian use, the use of "диванный" adj. actually voids the meaning of the noun to which it's applied (e.g., "диванный эксперт" = "not an expert actually") and has a ironic or sarcastic or even pejorative connotation. The older Russian analogues to that would be "кухонный <>" ("showing off with one's knowledge in the parlour, that knowledge never being good for use in the world outside") or "<> кислых щей" (just pejorative and a tiny bit vulgar), like other guys pointed out already. Or "<> доморощенный" (liter. "home-grown", "self-taught and so (supposedly) to a not very good extent").

That's what your English examples seem to denote, anyway.

Note 1: note the inverse order of noun and adjective, this strengthens the expressiveness.

Note 2: there's even more pejorative and vulgar "<> недоделанный" (liter. that adj. means "uncompleted, unfinished", but, again, in this use case it's very pejorative and vulgar).

On the other hand, to denote a lack of practical knowledge in somebody admittedly (well enough) theoretically trained, there is no direct one-word analogue. There's an ironic expression "молодой боец" ("just from the boot camp") or an ironic use of "молодой специалист" ("just finished studying, never worked seriously in this field").