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 am Terry Gross.
Sometimes I'm convinced that I wrote and sent an email, and I'm later alarmed to find I did neither.
I felt a little bit better reading that.
The same thing happens to my guest.
And he's a cognitive neuroscientist who studies memory.
Charan Ranganath's new book starts with a quote that I love.
That's from an anonymous Internet meme.
My ability to remember song lyrics from the eighties far exceeds my ability to remember why I walked into the kitchen.
I understand that.
I've experienced that maybe with different lyrics, though.
When Ragnath meets someone for the first time, the question he's most often asked is, why am I so forgetful?
He says we have the wrong expectations for what memory is for.