Please help ocd grammar

Question

I wrote my pastor a email, using "he/she" and "his/her" a few times in my email. I will not be able to contact him again. I know he understood what meant. It's just a informal friendly email, I have severe OCD. I feel terrible, because I've read online and some people said to never write it like that, but it's just a email, not academic at all. It's ok to use "he/she" or "his/her" in a informal email, correct?

Answer 1

No! I know that this is very common now in academia but it is wrong. Not only that, it is clunky. He and him are the generic pronouns for he or she and him or her. If you don't want to run afoul of the PC police, you could use "one," but don't if it doesn't sound natural to you.