Strange conversational style; is this a beginning stage of dementia?

Thank you Gemswinner,
Yes, my son (32) is taking notice and asked me about it more then a few times. My DH friends are noticing something is up and responding in different ways, but it comes and goes and he holds his own there.
I will look into your suggestions and appreciate everything you said.
He checked his hearing recently, and while there is very minimal damage ( loud music in youth), it does not explain what is happening.But thank you for your suggestion, freqflyer.
Thank you so much for your time!

In my Mother's case, it was an early sign of Alzheimer's/dementia. Are there other behaviors or "unusual for him" occurrences as well? My Mom started putting up sticky notes/reminders for herself everywhere (new behavior), she was also making poor financial decisions/foolish purchases which she would never before have exhibited. She also increased her hoarding, stopped most social activities, and added a few dents and dings to her car. I insisted on going with her to a primary care MD appointment, and asked ahead of time if he would perform an MMSE. It's a quick set of questions that are asked; my Mom got angry and defensive (she couldn't answer about half of the questions including drawing a simple clock). That was the beginning of my realization that something was really wrong. We had all sorts of blood work, a head scan, hearing test....trying to rule out everything else. It's smart of you to take notice and take action when you can get him to the MD (I know this is a bad time with the pandemic; try to get something scheduled for the next few weeks). You can also look up what a MMSE is, and look up changes to look for in Alzheimer's/Dementia. It isn't just one thing, but grouped together with a number of other behaviors, and a trip to your primary care MD would be a good start. Also, I conferred with my husband at the time about things he had seen/heard. You could ask other family members if they also notice anything "off". You're sharp to notice this, and my heart goes out to you.

anpasa, my Mom use to do that, and it turned out she was losing her hearing.... thus misunderstanding what was the subject matter. Once she got her hearing aids, she was back to regular conversations until her hearing totally faded away.