目玉が飛び出る ― eye-popping

目玉が飛び出るって、いったいどんな時にでしょうか？

デパートでちょっといいなあと思った洋服とかカバンの値札を見たとき！？でしょうか。

日本語でも”目玉が飛び出るような”値段、などと表現しますが、英語でも、"eye-popping"と表現することを最近知りました。

当然英語でも値段や金額について表現されることが多いようです。


Among those listing substantial property holdings or income from stock dividends in 2002 are Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; Bob Graham, D-Fla.; and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Others with eye-popping numbers included Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who listed four family trusts worth up to $45 million; John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who reported three blind trusts worth from $80 million to more than $125 million; and banking heir Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., whose assets include up to $50 million in Bank of Montreal stock.
(Associated Press. 2003.)


A couple of the best friends I've made in the real estate business are people I never sold a house to, and who, by the end of our time together, I didn't want to sell a house to (though I probably would've). One was an African-American lawyer, Geoff Murphy, who was determined to buy an eye-popping mansion at an eye-popping price, slap in the middle of the (all-white) Seminary section of my former home town of Haddam, New Jersey.
(Richard Ford. The Shore (Short Story). New Yorker. 2004.)


上記の2番目の引用例では、"eye-popping"が、"mansion"と"price"の2つを修飾しています。"price"については、目玉が飛び出るような”値段”の話ということですんなり理解できますが、"mansion"の修飾によって何を言わんとしているのでしょうか。

英和辞書を引くと、"eye-popping"には”目玉が飛び出るような”という意味に加えて、単にびっくりさせる、興奮させる、わくわくさせるような、といった意味も載っており、これは"exciting"に近いような意味もあるようです。

Her fabric collection is on loan to the Atlanta History Center. Here a visitor can, with permission, sift through drawers of her weavings, feeling the slippery silks and chamois-soft wools. In one drawer is a stack of scarves, where the eye-popping colors range through celery, eggplant, cranberry, raspberry, pokeberry, mandarin, sea foam, split pea and pumpkin.
(Atlanta Journal Constitution. 1996.)