Preventing pronoun confusion

Question

I have two people. Fred knows something about X. Jim is curious how much Fred knows. Fred has also made some wrong assumptions about X.

In describing the scene, I wrote this:

Perhaps Fred didn't know as much as Jim hoped he knew, and had made some wrong
  assumptions.

Then I thought about whether the pronouns and ordering had made it ambiguous. In the sentence, is it clear that hopes are Jim's, but they are hopes about Fred's knowledge; and is it clear that the wrong assumptions are (a) part of the "perhaps", and (b) belong to Fred?

In trying to re-write it to make it less ambiguous, I lose some of the flow.

Tinfoil Hat · Answer

Your sentence reads like this:

Perhaps Fred didn't know as much as Jim hoped Fred knew, and Fred had made some wrong assumptions.

You should omit the comma in your version:

Perhaps Fred didn't know as much as Jim hoped he knew and had made some wrong assumptions.

If the pronoun still bothers you, you could leave out he knew:

Perhaps Fred didn't know as much as Jim hoped and had made some wrong assumptions.

Preventing pronoun confusion

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