In Curufin's world, in the far distant past, the first Elves wanted to talk to everyone and everything. Their communications with the natural world woke some parts of it up, which is why there are sentient and semi-sentient trees in Middle-earth even today. Curufin isn't as good at this as his forebears and even some of his immediate family, but he's got the tendency.

"Ah, I see. Ghosts are stubborn. How do you exorcise them? If you don't use hypnosis."

Curufin would certainly count a clever distraction and a sucker punch as hypnosis! "What was the occasion for your hypnotizing this person? Did it work?"