Who says the following and why? "I was brought up to be just like him, unable to control myself, and using bad language on the slightest provocation. And I should never have known that ladies and gentlemen didn't behave like that if you hadn't been there." Liza is thanking Higgins for all he has done for her, but she is doing it sarcastically. Liza is thanking Pickering while subtly insulting Higgins by equating him with her father. Liza is thanking Pickering for all the money he spent on her. Liza is thanking Pickering while insulting her father, although she does not know he is there.

George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" tells the story of how Eliza Doolittle came to be a different girl through the experiment of Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering. She realized the importance of how one is presented in society as the only means of being taken seriously by others.

The given passage is spoken by Liza after she had escaped to Mrs. Higgins' home away from the two men. There, she narrates how grateful she is to the men for helping her and making her a different person from who she used to be. The specific lines from Act V scene 2 of the play shows her thanking Colonel Pickering while subtly insulting the other man, equating him to Mr. Doolittle, her father. She states how she "was brought up.... unable to control (herself), and using bad language on the slightest provocation". But through him (Pickering), she learned how "ladies and gentlemen" behave, giving her valuable life lesson changing her from the flower girl to a girl of 'class'.