What is Pickering's profession in Pygmalion?
As his title suggests, Colonel Pickering was once a soldier. Though now retired from the British Army, he still retains his old military title, as is customary. Since his days of soldiering came to an end, Pickering has carved out a successful career as an academic. He is an expert in linguistics whose main specialty is the study of Indian dialects.
Professor Higgins meets Colonel Pickering one night in Covent Garden while the latter is taking notes and guessing where people come from on the basis of their accents. Most of the common folk who gather in this part of town to sell their wares—like Eliza Dolittle—are deeply suspicious of this strange man. They assume that he's a "copper's nark"—a police informant. At the very least, he's a busybody poking his nose into other people's business.
Higgins, however, is intrigued by Pickering and goes over to introduce himself. Both men...
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are delighted to make each other's acquaintance. Like Pickering, Higgins is an expert in linguistics, and the two men have admired each other's work for many years. Pickering's work in the study of dialects makes him particularly intrigued by Higgins's bold experiment of passing off a humble Cockney flower-seller as a lady of quality.
What does Pickering offer to do in Pygmalion?
Act Two of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion opens on Colonel Pickering and Professor Henry Higgins reviewing the vowel sounds they both can pronounce in Higgin's home laboratory on Wimpole Street. They are surprised when Liza, the flower girl who they had encountered in Covent Garden the previous day, arrives at Higgin's home and insists to his housekeeper that she needs to speak with him. When given the opportunity to do so, Liza informs Higgins that she would like to pay him for speech lessons so that she can learn to "talk more genteel" and eventually obtain a position as a lady in a flower shop.
Both Liza and Colonel Pickering are enchanted by Higgin's earlier claim that in the space of three months, he could provide enough polishing to Liza's English to pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. Impressed by Higgin's phonetic skills and research, but desiring to see him actively at work, Colonel Pickering creates a wager with him: Pickering offers to cover all of the expenses of the "experiment" and to pay for Liza's speech lessons if Higgins can successfully do as he bragged he could do and pass Liza off as a duchess at the ambassador's garden party. This, Colonel Pickering claims, would make Higgins "the greatest teacher alive."
Higgins agrees to these terms, stating, "Yes: in six months--in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue--I'll take her anywhere and pass her off as anything."