I think nowhere in Pygmalion is it said that he is a grammarian, but in "You Did It," Higgins quotes Zoltan Karpathy saying, "And although she may have studied with an expert dialectician and grammarian." Obviously that is there just for the rhyme, but Higgins doesn’t then say, "And the fool thinks I’m a grammarian!"
Besides, if Higgins teaches people to speak properly — Eliza is far from the first person he has taught — then presumably he knows the rules of grammar and usage quite well. Some of the points that have been raised are questions of usage, not grammar. |
