If you’re a speaker, you may encounter one of those Mr./Ms. Smarty Pants in your audience once in a while. You know. That person who would quiz you for the sake of saying something. Or perhaps you’re asked a question that you’re totally unprepared to answer. If that places you in a sticky situation and face the risk of losing face, you may just have to evade the question. Here are some things that you could do.

Ask another question. If asked “Why?”, ask back, “Why not?”

Change the subject. Takes a little bit of skill to shift topics or it’d be quite obvious that you duck the question.

Answer with general ideas. Generalizations give you a lot of room to be not too exact with your answers, enabling you to probably expound or justify your answers at a later time.

Blast the question. State that the question is irrelevant to the topic.

Need to know basis. Tell that whatever information is asked for by the question is classified (or personal).

Variety. Give several plausible answers but don’t choose one in particular. Or say that the question cannot be answered directly.

Comment. Simply comment with strong emotion but don’t answer it directly. Injecting enthusiasm or humor into it may help a lot.