Dear Eric: I started a new relationship a couple years ago that has recently grown serious. I really love my girlfriend, and she is so sweet and kind. In fact, everybody loves her. The issue is that nearly every day, she mispronounces a word or uses one incorrectly. Sometimes cringingly so.

I am fortunate to be highly educated with a professional job and to have come from a family that valued speaking properly. She has limited education beyond high school, was married young and has established herself in a trade where she works for herself. I am very proud of her. However, I never know whether to correct her, if so, how often, or if I should just get over it. I think I personally would like to be gently corrected in private (e.g., by explaining the word’s origins and proper usage, etc.). Snobbish or helpful?

– Wordsmith

Dear Wordsmith: Ah, yes, you’re having a “My Fair Lady” problem. In the classic musical Henry Higgins, an erudite professor of phonetics, meets Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, and attempts to teach her how to speak “properly” as a bet with a friend, falling in love with her and her vivid style of communicating along the way.

The question here is sometimes the same as the question in “My Fair Lady”: does she want your help?

So, ask her, privately, the next time it happens. “You said [X], but it’s usually pronounced [Y]; is it helpful for me to point that out or would that annoy you?” Then do what she asks. If you’re the only one who is cringing, then it’s not a problem for both of you and correction is going to chafe her. Language is fluid; the most important thing is that you understand each other, both in what you’re saying and what you’re doing.

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Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.