Talking proper

“Her English is too good,” he said, “that clearly indicates that she is foreign
For whereas other girls are taught their native language, Englishwomen aren(‘t)….”

Thus did Zoltan Karpathy imagine, wrongly, that he had discovered Eliza Doolittle’s secret. In the period in which My Fair Lady is set, girls—other than upper class ones—weren’t taught anything much about our language. Nowadays they are taught just as much as boys, and may master it rather better. But it remains true that non-native-English-speakers who have had to learn the language sometimes seem to acquire a command of grammar and syntax (if not pronunciation) which puts to shame those who were fortunate enough to have merely absorbed it with their mothers’ milk.

[“…And although she may have studied with an expert dialectician and grammarian,
I.….can…..tell…..that.….she.....was.….born.….HUNGARIAN!”]