Mind Your Language

Reading today's paper my eyes were drawn to a headline -

All the legislation are stuck in Parliament 

 

 

All the legislation ARE stuck? Should that not be IS stuck, I wondered? Or, what is the plural for legislation? Is it not "legislations"? Or is legislation a word similar to fish and furniture? The plural of fish is fish (now does that sound fishy?) and the plural of furniture is furniture (yes, well, we have tended to get away with fishes as well as furnitures - just as we tend to get away by "pre-poning" a meeting instead of advancing the same)

 

All the legislation ARE stuck sounds rather odd, doesn't it? Well, then perhaps it IS correct simply because it does sound odd! (Similar to "He is taller than I" being the correct, yet more odd sounding than "He is taller than me")

 

Funny language, English - just like every other language, no? (I am yet to decode the gender issues in Hindi, for example - "Bus aa rahaa hai" or is it "Bus aa rahi hai"? Those who know me from 1987 would perhaps remember my foot in mouth "Meri naam Satheesh Kumar hai" - Hmmmm, hoon!)