Brought up in the language at a time when wrought iron was both common and frequently encountered, I always regarded "wrought" as the correct, if irregular, past participle of "wreak". These days there are many broadcasters who cause my ears to flinch with the more regular, but less felicitous, "wreaked".

And whenever I see "there are a number of things" I flinch again. Like John, I suspect. If the example is in an assignment from a student I usually suggest "there are several things" as a substitution. But then, I was brought up to believe the govt, the parliament and the local footie team were singular institutions.

And while we're on the notion of pond separations, I was taught
"compared with", "similar to" and "different from". I believe this construction came to Oz from Britain; given Britain is also where the US got much of its English, I'm interested to learn how the US arrived at "different than".

Cheers, Rowan