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 Tonya Mosley.
My guest, Tracee Ellis Ross, co stars in the new movie american fiction, which is nominated for three oscars, including best picture.
She and the cast are also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble.
Tracee Ellis Ross plays Lisa, a doctor for Planned Parenthood and the sister of Thelonious Monk Ellison, played by Jeffrey Wright, a frustrated novelist and professor fed up with the literary world, profiting from stereotypical stories of black people who are poor and gangs or addicted to drugs.
To prove his point, he uses a pen name and writes a book that leans into all of those stereotypes.
And he's offered a huge advance, making Monk the very kind of author he despises.
Monk is also living in the shadows of his accomplished siblings, his physician sister Lisa, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, and his brother, played by Sterling K.
Brown, a successful plastic surgeon.
And Monk is trying to figure out how to care for his mother, who has Alzheimer's.
In this scene, he's catching up with his sister Lisa, and the ways that siblings do, and the two of them are talking about the stresses of their jobs and the purpose behind what they do.
How's work?
It's not very glamorous.
I go through a metal detector every day.
What you do is important.
Meanwhile, all I do is invent little people in my head and then make them have imaginary conversations with each other.