Constitutional law

The second entry is la clausola intangibile, and an English reader who trusts the shape of the word will get it exactly backwards. In English, « intangible » has drifted to mean immaterial, having no physical substance: intangible assets, intangible heritage, an intangible sense of unease. The touching has become a metaphor and the prohibition has fallen away. Italian kept the prohibition. Intangibile is built on tangere, to touch, with the negative in-, and it describes something that must not be touched rather than something that cannot be felt. In constitutional language that is the whole point: a clause the amending power is not allowed to reach, and le clausole intangibili of a constitution are the articles no majority, however large, may rewrite. The everyday register keeps the same force: un principio intangibile is one nobody may bargain over, and i diritti sono intangibili is a promise rather than a statement about thin air. For the English sense of « intangible », Italian reaches for a different word altogether, immateriale: i beni immateriali are intangible assets, and a court can certainly touch those.