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 Tanya Moseley.
My guest, Molly Ringwald, is having a full circle moment.
When she was three years old, she made her stage debut in Truman Capote's the Grassharp.
Now, decades later, she stars as one of Capote's loyal friends in the new Ryan Murphy series feud Capote versus the Swans.
Set in the 1970s, the series is about the late novelist, screenwriter and actor Truman Capote and his high society friend group known as the Swans.
Composed of wealthy wives of successful men, the group implodes after Capote turns the women's real lives into a thinly veiled work of fiction.
Ringwald plays Joanne Carson, ex wife of talk show host Johnny Carson and one of Capote's most loyal friends.
With him until the very end of his life, Molly Ringwald grew to fame representing Gen X angst in eighties films like 16 Candles, the Breakfast Club and Pretty in pink.
And 2022, Ringwald starred in Ryan Murphy's monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story, playing the murderer's stepmother.
In addition to acting, Ringwald is a jazz musician, author and translator of several books from French to English.
Molly Ringwald, welcome to FRESH AIR.
Thank you for having me.
It's an honor.
In Capote versus the Swans, you play Joanne Carson, talk show host Johnny Carson's second wife, and to set that up for everyone.
When Joanne divorced Johnny, she became an exile from the Hollywood elite, which meant that she was not one of Truman Capote's swans.