Tell me more ×
Japanese Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 15 down vote favorite
3

I recently saw 冗談だっつの. What does it っつの mean, or how does it modify the meaning of a sentence?

share|improve this question
Please re-tag as you see fit. – Louis Jun 16 '11 at 19:17

1 Answer

up vote 13 down vote accepted

っつ (sometimes つう) is a slang version of という (or an alternate version like といった, depending on the context). It's extremely informal.

冗談【じょうだん】だっつの。 (＝冗談だ【じょうだん】といったの。) I said I was joking. [Idiomatically: Chill out, I was just kidding.]

彼【かれ】はやめたいっつってんだから、やめさせてやりゃいいじゃん。 (＝彼【かれ】はやめたいといっているんだから、やめさせてやればいいじゃない。) He's saying he wants to quit, so why not let him?

まぁ、なんつうかさ、ちょっとまずいっすね。 (＝まぁ、なんというかさ、ちょっとまずいですね。) Well, it's…what should I say…kind of a bad situation.

share|improve this answer
Got it, thanks. That's quite the leap there. I like how it can even assume different tenses. – Louis Jun 16 '11 at 20:15
I always thought っつって came about by (jokingly) pronouncing the っ in って and inserting new っ along the way: だって → だつて → だっつって. At least that's how I picked it up. :-3 Any evidence for or against that theory? – deceze Jun 16 '11 at 23:08
2  
@deceze: って and っつって mean different things, and therefore it is natural to consider that って did not arise by pronouncing the little っ in って (unless further evidence for the theory exists). っつって is a very informal contraction of って言って (which itself is a little informal form of と言って). – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 17 '11 at 1:57
2  
While we're on this subject, it's worth pointing out that the entire いる part of 言っている gets dropped sometimes: なにいってんだ？＝なにをいっているんだ？. This is why っつってん expands to といっているん, as Tsuyoshi mentioned. – Derek Schaab Jun 17 '11 at 13:19
1  
@yadokari: I imagine なんつって comes from なんかいって, since it's often used to mark speech without an exact wording. (In English, the best parallel is the slang expression, "He was like, '[statement]'.") The alternate use of なんつって to mean "Just kidding!" might be a masculine version of the somewhat feminine なんていっちゃって, which is shortened to なんちゃって. – Derek Schaab Oct 3 '11 at 16:22
show 2 more comments

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.