Intangibles

Intangibles

Today I’ve got just one word for you: “intangibles.”

Intangible, the word, is an adjective. It means that something isn’t physical; it can’t be touched. It’s generally something abstract.

Things like emotions, thoughts, your reputation, trust, dreams, things like that—these are intangible. They’re real, but you can’t touch them.

In business, an intangible asset is something like a brand name. A brand name or reputation isn’t something you can point to or touch, like a machine, but a brand name is still valuable.

Often, we can simply say “intangibles” if we mean, “intangible properties” or “intangible characteristics.” And that’s how you heard it in today’s story about diamonds . There are a lot of ways to describe a diamond. First, you can talk about its size. The size of a diamond is measured in carats. Next, you can talk about its shape: it can be round, heart-shaped, whatever.

You can talk about its color: some diamonds are clear (those are the purest), but some diamonds have colors inside that come from impurities and chemicals. There’s something called a cut grade or a cut quality. These are all tangible characteristics. You can look at them and measure them.

But diamonds come with intangibles too. They’re rare. They convey status. Some people like the idea that they were formed a billion years ago, and now those diamonds are on their engagement ring—it’s like a connection to the earth, a connection to the past. These are intangible properties of diamonds. You can feel them, but you can’t point to them, you can’t measure them, you can’t touch them. You can decide for yourself if these intangibles make a real diamond better than a lab-grown diamond.

An historic building has intangibles. Imagine there are two buildings, right next to each other, that are identical in every way. But one of them was home to a former president or prime minister.

Which one is more valuable? Of course, it’s the one that was home to the famous person. But why? The answer is that it has intangibles. It has a connection to the past. When you walk through the house, you can imagine the famous person living there as a child. This is intangible: you can’t touch it, you can’t feel it, you can’t measure it with a ruler, you can’t point to it. But it’s there.

Rare books, antique cars, rare coins: these all have intangibles, too. The words in a first-edition rare book are the same as in subsequent editions. But that first edition has a connection to the past.

People can have intangibles, too. Leadership is often described as intangible. On a sports field, you might have two players that are identical in all their statistics, but one is a better leader. One inspires his teammates more than the other; one is a better teacher, mentor. If you just look at the stats, just look at the production on the field, just look at what can be measured, you might be missing the intangibles.

When you go to hire someone, one hard debate can be, how much value do we place on intangibles? If you’re deciding between two candidates for a job—you might find that they’re equal in terms of education, experience, and qualifications. But one of them just seems better with people. You can imagine that one of them might form a better connection with customers and coworkers. Not every job qualification can be written down on paper and measured.

You wouldn’t want “intangibles” to be the only basis for choosing one candidate over another, but it can often break a tie.

So as you can see in all of these examples, intangibles are often about how things make you feel—a diamond ring, a signed book, an historic house, a charismatic employee.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today’s Plain English. This was lesson number 617. So if you’re looking for the transcript—that’s where you find it. PlainEnglish.com/617. The transcript is included in all membership plans, including the free.

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That’s all for today—we’ll be back on Monday with a new lesson. See you then.