ったら / といったら

といったら after a noun picks out a quality and says that it went beyond words: "the X of it was something else". The noun is usually an adjective turned into a noun with 〜さ – うつくし美しさ, さむ寒さ, うれし嬉しさ – and the second half says how far it went.

It works for good and bad alike. In conversation it shortens to ったら.

といったらない

Ending the sentence on ない says the same thing more briefly: "there's nothing like it", "indescribably". It is not a negative – the quality is extreme, not missing. ありゃしない is a stronger, more colloquial ending, and ありはしない its written form.

An い-adjective can take ったらない directly, without turning into a noun.

Usage notes

These go beyond the "beyond words" meaning.

ったら after a person

After a person's name or a word for a person, ったら marks the topic with exasperation, or with fond complaint: "honestly, that kid…". It is spoken and casual.

Not the conditional

This ったら has nothing to do with the conditional きごう〜たら, "if" or "when", which follows a verb's た-form: 行ったら is "if I go". ったら here follows a noun or the dictionary form of an い-adjective.