If the speakers were Anglais, could you have countered with your linguistic skills? And when they said, "Sorry, we don't understand French," you could have replied, "About as much as I understand about quantum theory."

If that didn't apply on this occasion, I have nothing witty to add. But I do think it's less than thoughtful to carry on a conversation that one or more members of a dinner party is incapable of following, at least for more than a few minutes.

Will keep it in mind for future reference. And thank you for validating my take on it.

Merci,
Mme. D.

If someone else did, I'd be happy to expound on it, but it feels weird to bring up a subject where there's a 10,000 to 1 chance others could participate.

my dinner companion.

I had a guy being up femtochemistry at a party.
He knew practically nothing about chemistry but he must have read an article about it.
Trying to find something about chemistry I didn't know? Except, that I knew a guy from New Nexico Tech that was doing femtochemistry on detonating reactions so I knew something about it from an expert. Didn't go well for the guy who ran out of "facts" in a hurry.

mon cher professeur!

very inappropriate.

A bit full of themselves. I also feel it’s best to counter with the most absurd thing that pops into your head…

I was considering quantum theory, until I found there was more money and personal fulfillment in porn…..

But, that’s just me.

that’s the ticket! 😎

to translate the general gist into everyday language for the other guests.

I dated an English lit grad student years ago. He had a friend who was a physics major. There are topics in physics that interest me but I do not have the math and science background to read up on them. Sometimes I asked the physics major questions about physics concepts and developments and he was good at communicating concepts in language that I could follow.

However, my English lit grad student boyfriend was bored with physics even though he could understand the way it was being explained.

It worked out OK when the 4 of us were together. The physics major's girlfriend was an English major, so she discussed literature with my boyfriend while I discussed physics with her boyfriend.

One topic we all were interested in and agreed on was politics. This was the Watergate hearings era. Eventually we all turned to discussing it.

The physics major was not trying to impress anyone with his knowledge. He only answered my questions, very patiently. Our dates were not inconvenienced since they had a topic to share.

But the setting you describe sounds inconsiderate, especially since it was done to impress people.

was my take on it.

A good reaction when the guy started to pontificate would have been "that's neither here nor there."

-- Mal