On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann.
Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is.
The history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is fresh air.
I'm Tyria Gross.
It's been less than one and a half years since my guest, WNBA star star Brittany Greiner, was released from a russian penal colony where she was serving a nine year sentence.
Shed already spent 293 days incarcerated in russian prisons.
Now shes preparing for her second season, reunited with her team, the Phoenix Mercury.
Like many WNBA players, her salary was so low that back in 2014, in the off season, she started playing for a team in Russia where the pay was considerably better than in the US.
She continued playing in Russia during the off season until 2022.
Then, when she arrived at the airport in Moscow, she was unexpectedly stopped, questioned and asked to empty the contents of her luggage.
She discovered that there were two nearly empty cartridges of cannabis that shed neglected to remove before the trip.
She had a prescription for medical marijuana to ease the chronic pain of basketball injuries.
But in Russia, theres no such thing as medical marijuana.
And she was accused of having a significant amount of cannabis, which was just not true.
Her imprisonment made national headlines, and a movement formed to demand her release.
The Biden administration eventually was able to negotiate a prisoner swap.