Some heard Asian offensive twice about American in conversation (4-1-4)
I believe the answer is:
tete-a-tete
'conversation' is the definition.
(I know that tete-a-tete is a type of conversation)
'some heard asian offensive twice about american' is the wordplay.
'some heard asian offensive' becomes 'tete' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'twice' says to double the letters.
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'american' becomes 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names).
'tete' duplicated is 'tetetete'.
'tetetete' placed around 'a' is 'TETE-A-TETE'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tete-a-tete that I've seen before include "Private couple's conversation" , "One-to-one meeting" , "Private conversation between two people as in France" , "Informal chat" , "Private meeting" .)