Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

So . . . I'm on the bandwagon now, using they as a singular pronoun in place of he or she (or them as an object). But doesn't the following sound awkward?

"How dare this man come in here and name a snake after his wife?" said the writer who identified themselves as Margaret Knight. (from this story at CNN.com)

Can't we say themself in the above-quoted sentence? Plural them (since we have no choice, and since the blogger referred to here could have had a gender non-specific name) plus the singular -self, since we know that the pronoun refers to a single person?

Also, what's with the trend of using they when the person is not named but the gender is known? As in "I'm going to make you guess which guy from high school is her new husband, but I'll give you a clue: they still work at the same roller rink." I most often hear it in situations where the speaker is delaying identifying the person being referred to, as in an introduction, but where the gender is obvious (e.g., someone's husband, woman-of-the-year award recipient). Can we stop this? Can't we say ". . . he's still at the same roller rink"?