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.
From why yy in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with fresh air weekend.
Today, poverty, chastity, obedience and rebellion.
We talk with Kathryn Coldstream about her years as a nun in a cloistered carmelite monastery, the beauty of the silence and prayer and the loneliness when her idealism and intellectualism were frowned on.
After ten years, she ran away.
She's written a memoir.
Also, we hear from Mark Daley.
He and his husband wanted children.
Their choices were surrogacy, private adoption, which can take years, or becoming foster parents.
They decided to foster.
He's written a memoir about fostering two young children who suffered trauma.
And Maureen Corrigan reviews Percival Everett's new novel James.
It's a reimagining of Mark Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Everett's 2001 novel Erasure was adapted into the recent film american fiction.
That's coming up on Fresh Air weekend.