'The staff are able to' or 'The staff IS able to'?

[titchy]

Intuitively the former sounds right, but the word staff is a collective nown n'est pas? Like club? 'The club is able to' is correct but staff....?

And the plural of trade union is...? Trades union like in courts martial, or trade unions?

[titchy]

And on a more flippant note, if you can feel disgruntled, can you also feel gruntled?

[Flier]

hmm meaning of gruntled here

[maidamess]

The staff ARE

Trade Unions

[funnypeculiar]

On the second point - see wodehouse third quote

[Molesworth]

Trades unions is the plural, although perhaps if you were talking about multiple unions relating to a single trade you could say "trade unions", but I think that might be taking pedantry too far

I'd use "the staff ARE" because "staff" is like the noun "people": not a single entity.

[Memoo]

Are, defo

[kiskideesameanoldmother]

staff is a collective noun. it is therefore singular. 'is'

A trades union, sounds like one union for several trades.

Trade unions = ATL, NUT, NASUWT...

mebbe.

[LynetteScavo]

The staff are able to.