In this paper an effort is made to review the relevance and limitations of a scattering of near-recent work in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversational analysis with respect to a central issue in the sociological study of social interaction: the taken-for-granted and the inferences made therefrom. The hope is that the line between microsociological studies and sociolinguistics can be shown to be arbitrary, requiring those on each side of the division to address the concerns of those on the other side.