(dis)agreement with "all politics is local"

[David Bowie]

From:    Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU

<snip>

: For Rell, "politics" is evidently a collective plural, so that it
: really *should* have been "All politics are local" instead.  Or is it
: the "all" that she thinks makes it plural?  Would we say "All
: linguistics are tricky"?  "All mathematics are hard"?  (Note that
: it's not purely a formal question --while it is indeed possible to
: have "all statistics are biased", that's a real count noun, the
: singular "that statistic is biased" being impeccable as well.)

For me, the 'all' clearly plays a role. Consider, based entirely on personal
intuitions:

Politics is/*are local
Linguistics is/*are tricky
Mathematics is/*are hard

(I'm curious what British English intuitions are for 'Maths is/are hard',
though.)

Oddly, this pair:

Statistics *is/are biased
Statistics is/*are useful

So, apparently, there's a difference for me between different uses of a
single such term. Consider:

Politics is/are dirty

(Where whether you use the 'is' or 'are' depends on what you want 'politics'
to mean--the concept/process in general ('is') or political process*es*,
such as campaigning, lawmaking, &c.

Interestingly, i can't think of any sentences where i'd accept 'are' to go
along with bare 'linguistics' or 'mathematics' (or 'math', FTM). However,
upon adding 'all' to the mix:

All politics ?is/are local
All linguistics is/*are tricky
All mathematics is/?are hard
All statistics *is/are biased
All statistics is/are useful
All politics is/are dirty

Basically, you put 'all' in front of one of these, and except for
'linguistics' (which may be different due to excessive familiarity), 'are'
becomes at least marginally acceptable.

<snip>

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.