Meaning of つかみどころがない on a person


I have seen the literal translation of the phrase 「つかみどころがない」, somewhere along
the lines of being either slippery, vague or elusive. I encountered this
phrase

> 立花｛たちばな｝さん **つかみどころない** んだよなぁ…

I cannot seem to extend the translation into this sentence. The context
suggests that it means the person is kind of hard to talk to (awkward
silence), but maybe that's irrelevant for this sentence.

**UPDATE** : I wrote "literal" translation, but really it's not literal and
it's simply the definition given by dictionaries. Apologies for the confusion.




> have seen the literal translation of the phrase 「つかみどころがない」, somewhere along
> the lines of being either slippery, vague or elusive.

I do not see how those can be called the "literal" translations.

「つかみどころがない」 comes from the phrase 「掴{つか}むところがない」. 「掴む」 means to "grab",
"catch", "grasp", "take hold of", etc.

「つかみどころがない」, therefore, literally means "there is no part to grasp".

**When that is said about a person, it means that you have no idea what s/he
really has in mind and/or there is a mystery about him/her** , which is why
the dictionaries would give the definitions of "vague", "slippery", "elusive",
etc.




> have seen the literal translation of the phrase 「つかみどころがない」, somewhere along
> the lines of being either slippery, vague or elusive.

I do not see how those can be called the "literal" translations.

「つかみどころがない」 comes from the phrase 「掴{つか}むところがない」. 「掴む」 means to "grab",
"catch", "grasp", "take hold of", etc.

「つかみどころがない」, therefore, literally means "there is no part to grasp".

**When that is said about a person, it means that you have no idea what s/he
really has in mind and/or there is a mystery about him/her** , which is why
the dictionaries would give the definitions of "vague", "slippery", "elusive",
etc.

