Scene 1:
The play begins in the study of Professor Higgins, a renowned linguist. He's joined by Colonel Pickering and Eliza Doolittle, a poor flower girl with a thick cockney accent. Higgins corrects Eliza's mispronunciation of the sentence, 'The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,' emphasizing her linguistic shortcomings. He sets a task for her to repeat that phrase....