J I Cohen

19th Jun 2004

My Fair Lady (1964)

Corrected entry: Prof. Higgins, a world-renowned expert on the English language, makes three grammar/usage errors that would flunk him out of any 9th-grade English class. First: The song "Why Can't the English" contains the line, "By rights they should be taken out and hung . . . " (Pictures are hung; people are hanged.) Second: In "Let a Woman in Your Life," he sings, "I'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling than to ever let a woman in my life." ("Equally as" is redundant, "to ever let" is a split infinitive and "than" should be "as." ) Shudder.

Correction: These "errors" are in songs. Allowances are made in the English language for the demands of verse.

J I Cohen

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