I have never heard this expression until recently, and now it's in the headines a couple times a week. "Eye-Watering Budget Projections", "Eye-Watering Scale of Scandal". Eyes water for a lot of things- sad, happy, onions. Aren't there better words people are already using, like "shocking"?
It sounds like AI made it up. Some weird concatenation of "mouth-watering", and the same body-function reaction to shock that's in so many other expressions. But AI doesn't appreciate (or even know about) the emotional context that would cause an eye to water. Can it ever?
