90235
I stumbled upon the sentence "その時私たち三人が互いに見合わせた目といったら、顔といったらありません" in a
bilingual short story book, it's being translated as "We exchanged glances,
our expressions incredulous", but I can't really make sense of
"目といったら、顔といったらありません", it feels like something is being omitted. For context:
The protagonist and his two friends were forced by a current offshore and are
now struggling to get back. Right after the sentence, face and eyes are
described. Can someone help me out?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-06T19:29:51.060
90231
2021-09-07T06:55:58.133
48087
question
meaning
What does 目といったら、顔といったらありません mean?
といったらありません itself seems covered standardly in grammar like
[this](https://edujapa.com/mikke/level/5/toittaranai_naranai/). ありません is a
polite form of ない. The whole phrase means something is beyond description,
positive or negative.

But normally the preceding word is either an adjective or its nominal version
(or something quantifiable). The following are more regular examples.

  * この問題の難しさといったらない
  * この問題は難しいといったらない

Both mean literally _The difficulty of this problem is beyond description_ or
simply _This problem is extremely difficult_.

Now the use of the phrase in the sentence of the question is a little
irregular, but you can think of 目 / 顔 as a contraction of 目の様子/顔の様子 = how
eyes/faces look (like).

Thus it means _We three people looked at each other then, and how the eyes
looked like and how the faces looked like are indescribable._ It depends on
the context in what sense they were indescribable - possibly very weird or
dirty or looked extremely happy.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-06T23:17:57.113
90235
2021-09-07T06:55:58.133
2021-09-07T06:55:58.133
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45489
90231
answer