I'm glad to hear I'm not the only closet language pedant.

Here's a few sentences to remember:

'You're never at your best until you're using your yaw control properly.'

'They're never going to accept they're using the word 'their' improperly until there are more teachers taking pride in their "theres".'

And here's a question for you: grey or gray?

And don't forget that mischievous second 'i' in Liaison. It's a nasty one.

I agree with almost all you have said. Have you noticed how many young people use 'portray' wrongly? But I disagree about your use of myriad. My dictionary, The New Imperial Refernce Dictionary (1952) says "Myriad, Noun, any immense number - adj numberless (Greek myrias, -ados ten thousand)." I can see why using it in the plural is wrong though.

I have had a huge response to my article on language pedantry since it appeared in The Australian last week. It confirms my view that many people do care about our beautiful language and don't want to see it decline. I should point out that I am not an authority, just someone who really loves English.
Thanks to both people who have commented so far on this forum. In reply to Enda, who queries my favouring "myriad": again, I am not a grammarian but it is my understanding that adjectives do not have plural forms and therefore it is not correct for myriad to take a plural "s" when it is being used as an adjective.
Thanks also to TurnLeftThenRight (aren't internet aliases fascinatiing - I wonder what this one means). You ask about grey/gray. I would be interested to hear from other (more qualified) people here, but certainly from my point of view as an Australian journalist, we would always use "grey" as it is accepted Australian style, whereas "gray" is accepted US style. It is more of a style issue than a matter of correctness.
More power to the pedants!
Liz

Liz,
Thank you for "up-staging" me, as I was in the process of writing a similar article.
My intention was to highlight the inability of many news readers, both on radio and TV, to interpret correctly the meaning of a writer's report, and communicate this to the audience.
They place the wrong stress within prepositional phrases during their reading of stories, the principle examples being "of", "from", "for" and "to".
I grow more firmly a fellow pedant when so-called professional users of English read a sentence such as:
".....firemen helped drag the victim FROM the building" or:
".....there's relief in sight FOR taxpayers".
A sad fact is that much of this linguistic inability is heard on the ABC, which really should be an standard setter for the correct delivery of English.
My scorn stems from years of directing actors and performers in delivering the meaning of scripts, yet my competence with English was only as a result of thorough schooling, and the challenge of language as an emotive art form.

It's not only newsreaders who are guilty of abusing the language - save some criticism for their subjects.

There are a number of politicians out there, who have designed a new sentence structure. Kim Beazley is one example, though there are plenty on both sides of the political fence using this tactic.

Simply put, they have rearranged the pause in the sentence. A normal person gets through a sentence, then pauses to take a breath - not so anymore.

These politicians are so keen to push their barrow, that the pause takes place halfway through a sentence. This way, they can finish the sentence with an "and just let me say this" before propelling themselves into a new diatribe without being cut off by the now baffled interviewer.

I have this irrational fear that one day they will find a way to breathe without taking in air through their throat... Perhaps gills, or perhaps they'll learn to breathe through the other end...
I'd better quash this line of thought before it leads to the obvious lowbrow politician-bashing.

P.S. Indeed, internet aliases are great. This one is a recommendation to experience a little of both sides of the political spectrum to achieve a certain balance, while acknowledging you'll probably end up one way or the other anyway... either that or it's directions to my house. I'm not really sure any more.

I agree with all of the above. In year 8, my Japanese teacher had to teach my grade what nouns and adjectives were before she felt she could properly teach us Japanese.

In year 10 I went to America on exchange, and felt completely overwhelmed by the grammar component of their English classes. I remember asking "What is a gerund? What's an appositive? What's a participial phrase?" They also had vocabulary lists they would learn every week- unlike most of the schools I've attended in Australia.

My goodness, if even the Americans can learn how to speak English properly, surely we can as well!