On the Ted Radio Hour, linguist Anne 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. You're listening to shortwave.

From NPR.

Hey shortwaivers, I'm your host today, science correspondent Jeff Brumfield.

Earlier this year I went to Israel to cover the ongoing war that began after the Hamas attack of October 7th,

and I found myself on a grassy hill overlooking the city of Hebron.

Hebron is in the occupied West Bank. It's home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,

but also living there are some militant Israeli settlers.

It's a tense place full of soldiers and checkpoints and high-powered security cameras.

Even here, you can see there's cameras. There's cameras. Even here you can see there's cameras.

There's cameras sticking out from the rooftops

sort of peeping out of the corners of houses.

And yeah, I mean it does feel like you're surveilled pretty much everywhere you go here.

These cameras are doing more than just watching people. They're identifying them

thanks to facial recognition.

Isa Umero is a Palestinian activist and longtime resident of Hebron. He says the cameras know him.

They have our own data. It's connected to the camera with facial recognition. This is what they say facial recognition. I think it's more than that.

Its body, its eyes, it's your shapes. So it's more than that, okay? And the cameras tell Israeli soldiers patrolling the city

everything about him before he even shows them his ID. They've got his life story.

I am a human rights defender. I was in jail many times. They tell me about that I'm divorced.

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