Learn English – Stealing the topic from another person when he or she is going to tell you something

dialogue

When someone is starting to tell you something from his or her life, some persons are immediately interrupting and starting to talk about the same topic, but from their own perspective instead. Example:

Person A: I just came back from Italy, I had a..

Person B: Oh Italy! I remember when I was there five years ago, bla bla bla..

Is there a word for that?

Best Answer

That's what I'd call hijacking the conversation:

VERB

[WITH OBJECT]

1.2

Take over (something) and use it for a different purpose:
the organization had been hijacked by extremists

MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES

The public power belongs to everyone and when majorities hijack it for sectarian purposes they act oppressively.

Where Pringle is even-handed in showing how extremists have hijacked the debate over GM food, Nestle is an unapologetic partisan.

We should not let racist organisations hijack our national flag.

(Definition and examples from Oxforddictionaries.com)

Sometimes, a person who hijacks the conversation could be termed an attention whore:

Label given to any person who craves attention to such an extent that they will do anything to receive it. The type of attention (negative or positive) does not matter.

(Definition from Urbandictionary.com)

Related Topic