When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. Without question, the surest way to make the reader feel inadequate is by putting the punchline of an anecdote in a little spoken foreign language. In the parlance of the theatre, it is known as vaudeville. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. Richard Nixon Miscellaneous Conversation is the slowest form of human communication.
Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.
The medium is the message. You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. The only difference is that there is no cat. When at last this little instrument appeared, consisting, as it does, of parts every one of which is familiar to us, and capable of being put together by an amateur, the disappointment arising from its humble appearance was only partially relieved on finding that it was really able to talk.