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Why Can't the English? - Voice
Frederick Loewe, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Marni Nixon, Rex Harrison & André Previn
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🇬🇧 English · Original
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Look at her! A prisoner of the gutter
Condemed by every syllable she utters
By right, she should be taken out and hung
For the cold blooded murder of the English tongue!
(OOOWWWWW!)
Heavens! What a sound!
This is what the British population
Calls an elementary education
(Come sir, I think you've picked a poor example)
Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square
Dropping H's everywhere
Speaking English anyway they like
Ah, you sir! Did you go to school?
What do you "tike" me for, a fool?
No one taught him "take" instead of "tike"?
Hear a Yorkshire man, or worse!
Hear a Cornish man converse
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat!
Chickens cackling in a barn, just like this one
(Gawm!)
Gawm! I ask you sir, what sort of word is that?
It's "ow" and "gawm" 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!)
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutley classifies him
The moment he talks, he makes some other Englishman dispise 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 are even are places where English completely disappears!
Well, 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 don' 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 frightening
Use proper English you're regarded as a freak
Oh, why can't the English
Why can't the English learn to speak?