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Recently a friend of mine threw the term 意味くじピーマン (imi kuji pi-man) into a story she was telling, and it totally threw me off. At first I thought, because I wasn't sure how to parse the くじ part, it meant something like "meaningful peppers."

Then a friend said it meant "no meaning at all", but that definition seemed to be a little mundane given how colourful the expression is. Surely it has more nuance?

I looked it up, but wasn't able to find a straight forward definition. And even if it does mean "no meaning at all", how do you get that from:

意味 = いみ, meaning
くじく = crush or break
ピーマン = pepper

...?

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    Is your friend from Okinawa?
    – repecmps
    Jun 1, 2011 at 11:05

2 Answers 2

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I was waiting for your reply to my comment before giving an answer. (the one accepted is partly correct and missing some important background)

意味くじピーマン is used as well as イミクジ解からん in Okinawa The former probably more often used by girls and kids and the latter by young men.

You assumed くじ comes from　くじく but this is not correct. （イミ）クジ is an abbreviation for ブンクジ as in 文・故事 (ぶん・こじ)

ピーマン is just a fun word added by 小学生 You would also see イミクジがムサットゥ (Uchina- version of I don't understand)

All of these, you already know, mean: I don't get it、意味わからない

All these years in Okinawa finally are paying off! :p

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  • Thanks for that! I actually switched to your answer as the accepted answer because it seems more complete. YOU's answer covered usage, but yours also had background, which I think is really critical to understanding. (@YOU: your answer is still appreciated, so please don't take it as a criticism.)
    – Questioner
    Jun 2, 2011 at 9:19
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It is the slang used amoung young people in Okinawa, kanji "意味" was not used in original phrase, but katakana is used instead.

イミ or イミヨー means "意味がわかんない" in Okinawa dialect, also "イミクジピーマン" is one form.

And looks like some people use ~ピーマン　in end of the phrase in Okinawa.

refs:

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  • Thanks, that clarifies that it doesn't mean "No meaning", but that it means "I don't understand". However, where the heck does it come from? What does crushing peppers have to do with meanings?
    – Questioner
    Jun 1, 2011 at 13:28
  • @Dave, Some クジ... words (like ンムクジプットゥルー) has different meaning in Okinawa Dialect than Japanese, so may be traslating that as Standard Japanese is not so correct, I think.
    – YOU
    Jun 1, 2011 at 14:18

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