User blog:Cubears/"Him or her" vs. "they"

There is a problem I've found with many of the articles on TESWiki. When an article refers to "the Dragonborn" multiple times in the same sentence, it makes sense to use a pronoun rather than to constantly repeat "the Dragonborn". However, which pronoun should be used? "He?" "She?" The Dragonborn may be either male or female. Since the only neuter pronoun in English is "it," and that pronoun should never be used when referring to a person, then what do you do?

I found the first half of the first page of this document to do a good job of enumerating the issues: http://www.valueplaza.com/English/Pronouns.pdf. I think the suggestions need some work.

The strictly correct English usage is to say, "He or she." Here is an example: "When the Dragonborn arrives at the gate, he or she can turn the handle."

However, what many people do is to use the plural pronoun "they", because it is neuter gender (example: "When the Dragonborn arrives at the gate, they can turn the handle," plus it is only one word. The problem is that this is incorrect English. "They" should only be used to refer to a group.

Others use the construct, "he/she," or, "(s)he." Again, these are examples of incorrect English.

Note that the same applies to possesive pronouns: "his," "her," and "their." It is incorrect English to say, "The Dragonborn can place the item in their inventory." The strictly correct way is to say, "The Dragnborn can place the item in his or her inventory."

So, what should we do? We need to have consistency in the articles, and the fact that there is no agreement makes TESWiki harder to read. I personally would vote to always do the grammatically correct thing (e.g. "he or she", "him or her"), but I am a grammar Nazi. I realize that consistency is more important than always being 100% grammatically correct, but in the absence of guidelines, I always default to grammatically correct usage. What do people think?