This is not quite what you want, but if you are a grad student giving a talk and a senior person prefaces her question to you with “I am confused about...”, you are likely talking nonsense and they are too polite to tell you straight up.
Which reminds me of my born-again Christian mother—evangelicals bend over backwards to avoid dissing each other, so if you call someone “interesting” in a certain tone of voice it means “dangerous lunatic” and people take due warning. (May vary, this is in Perth, Australia.)
This is not quite what you want, but if you are a grad student giving a talk and a senior person prefaces her question to you with “I am confused about...”, you are likely talking nonsense and they are too polite to tell you straight up.
Which reminds me of my born-again Christian mother—evangelicals bend over backwards to avoid dissing each other, so if you call someone “interesting” in a certain tone of voice it means “dangerous lunatic” and people take due warning. (May vary, this is in Perth, Australia.)
Alternatively “I may hve misunderstood but surely....” is a good way to couch an objection