Why Can't the English? - Rex Harrison/Robert Coote/Julie Andrews/Franz Allers

Lyrics by：Alan Jay Lerner

Composed by：Frederick Loewe

Arranged by：Robert Russell Bennett/Phil Land

Produced by：Goddard Lieberson

Look at her a prisoner of the gutters

Condemned by every syllable she ever utters

By right she should be taken out and hung

For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue

Aaoooww

Henry

Aaoooww Heavens what a sound

This is what the British population

Calls an elementary education

Oh come Sir I think you picked a poor example

Did I

Hear them down in Soho square

Dropping h's everywhere

Speaking English anyway they like

You Sir did you go to school

Wadaya tike me for a fool

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

Garn

Henry

Garn I ask you Sir what sort of word is that

It's Aoooow 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

I beg your pardon Sir

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

In America they haven't used it for years

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak

Norwegians learn Norwegian the Greeks are taught their Greek

In France every Frenchman knows his language from A to Zed

The French never care what they do actually

As long as they pronounce it properly

Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning

And Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening

But use proper English you're regarded as a freak

Oh why can't the English

Why can't the English learn to speak