Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner
Music: Frederick Loewe
"Eliza (spoken)
Aoooooooooow!
Higgins (sings)
Look at her, a pris’ner of the gutters;
Condemned by ev’ry syllable she utters.
By rights she should be taken out and hung.
(spoken)
For the cold-blooded murder of the English
tongue!
Eliza (spoken)
A-o-o-o-w!
Higgins (spoken)
Aoooow! Heavens, what a noise!
(sings)
This is what the British population
Calls an element’ry education.
Pickering (spoken)
Come, sir, I think you picked a poor example.
Higgins (spoken)
Did I?
(sings)
Hear them down in Soho Square,
Dropping aitches ev’rywhere,
Speaking English anyway they like.
(to a Cockney bystander) (spoken)
You, sir, did you go to school?
Cockney (spoken)
Whatya tike me fer, a fool?
Higgins
No one taught him ‘take’ instead of ‘tike’.
Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse.
I’d rather hear a choir singing flat!
Chickens cackling in a barn,
Just like this one,
Eliza (spoken)
Garn!
Higgins (spoken)
Garn!
I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?
(sings)
It’s ‘Aooow’ and ‘Garn’ that keep her in her place,
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
Pickering (spoken)
I beg your pardon!
Higgins
An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I’m afraid we’ll never get.
Oh, why can’t the English learn to
Set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
(Pickering meets Higgins.)
(spoken)
In America, they haven’t used it for years!
(sings)
Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks are taught their Greek.
In France ev’ry Frenchman knows his language from ‘A’ to ‘Zed’.
(aside)
The French never care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning;
The Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely fright’ning.
But use proper English, you’re regarded as a freak.
Why can’t the English...
Why can’t the English learn to speak?"