I have often struggled with sentences that contain two characters of the same gender. For example, if there are two females, Alice and Carol, then the following sentence can be confusing.
Alice reminded Carol about how she helped her last week.
Clearly, Alice is telling Carol something, but who helped whom?
When the genders differ, the ambiguity is resolved.
Alice reminded Bob about how he helped her last week.
Alice
reminded Bob about how she helped him last week.
Is there a rule that addresses this or a rule of thumb for handling it?
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