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I love the English language and while I can't claim to be a bona fide professor, I do like to consider myself a scholar of it and I DO stand fast as its champion. But I fear that it's under attack from the slow-witted and the dullards of society who are just too lazy to put the effort into learning this most eloquent and articulate of mediums.
Might it be that I'm being too hard on these people? Possibly, as it transpires that the very people charged with teaching the young, are as guilty as the students themselves when it comes to a lack of knowledge on the subject. Recent studies from Australia show that the average university graduate has trouble with even the most basic grammar and spelling. I find this to be staggering.

. In the UK, the home' of proper English, the pass mark in exams has been lowered to increase the number of students passing their English exams, and not just English it's applied across the board. (This is so the government of the day can crow about how their education policies are working when really all they succeed in doing is releasing a generation of illiterates on society). This goes beyond staggering and into the domain of outrage.
Someone once remarked about law that 'it never stands still - that it constantly evolves to comply with an evolving society'. The English language is a slave to this same theory and has been since its beginning many, many centuries ago. The assimilation of various other languages from Germanic to French to Latin (and more) has resulted in a vocabulary so rich and at times verbose that it is indeed quite difficult to learn. And as society progresses so does English; new words and phrases are accepted, old one's rendered redundant (quite possibly to be resurrected later in time).
Does that mean we should just put it in the too hard basket? Do we reduce it to a shadow of its former glory just to make the aforementioned dullards grasp it more easily? At the same time, some that should know better are suggesting that the language be dumbed down' to facilitate learning; some even going as far as to suggest phonetic learning (which is the most ridiculous suggestion I have ever heard not to mention completely unworkable!) And text' language (that insidious mobile phone text that completely negates all grammar), it has also been put forward, should be the subject of an examination. God help us all! (Though I must confess, as a matter of expedience I find myself employing that very practice to the eternal dismay of my grammatical sensibilities).
The fact is it's a difficult language to learn and unlike virtually every other language where there are rules of grammar that are followed almost religiously, English has, almost for every such rule, an exception, and it's knowing the application of such exceptions is what determines one's knowledge of the language. I have a great deal of respect for those who master it as a second language.
Like a microcosm of society's standards in general, the general decline in standards of the written and spoken word does not bode well for our future.
I for one shall continue to fight the good fight' as it were, for proper English, but I have concerns grave concerns for its future.

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