What do these two sentences mean?

[bunnyteeth]

There were two scenes in a drama I watched in which a character used a phrase that I did not know how to translate, nor do I think I fully grasped their meaning. The first was a scene in which a character was complaining about another character not talking a lot:

（他）能说三个字绝对不说一句话

I tried to figure out what it meant by breaking it down: "If he can say three words(?), he definitely won't say______" but I'm not sure if 一句话 here is meant to say "a full sentence" or if it refers to something else. Considering the character in question always speaks very eloquently, if not very much, I doubted that he meant he doesn't speak full sentences if he can help it.

The second one was when the character was trying to get his friend to tell him the full situation. He said:

不要打一巴掌讲一句

(For context, he followed this up with: 一次讲清楚)

I thought “打一巴掌讲一句" might be an idiomatic phrase or something so I looked it up, but I couldn't find any results. Is he threatening to beat the information out of this person? Or is it not meant literally?

[alantin]

I've never seen those, but from the characters I'd guess the first one to be something like "says three characters, without saying a word" i.e. "speaks a lot but no substance", and the second "to beat about the bush".

[Publius]

1) Let's stop using pronouns. Character A was complaining about character B's not talking a lot. A said: "(B)能说三个字绝对不说一句话." Right? Then who always talks very eloquently, A or B? Does it even matter? A could be complaining because B isn't as eloquent as A himself. Or A could be complaining because B is not as eloquent as B usually is. Without doubt 一句话 simply means a full sentence. If it still makes no sense, check if there are other characters involved, or post a link to that drama if possible.

 

2) I think the two sentences have already made it pretty clear. 一次讲清楚！不要打一巴掌讲一句！ It's just a metaphor. He could use other metaphors to express his impatience: 不要像挤牙膏一样！不要像便秘一样！ In short, "Come on! Spill it out already! I don't have to wrestle every bit of information out of you, do I?"

 

[Jim]

1. reads like they're saying "if he can get away with giving you a short/terse answer then that's all you'll get, he certainly won't be talking at any length/giving an expansive explanation etc."