Margaret, an informant in a study of college-age women, said this in the midst of a “talking diary” interview. Earlier, the interviewer had limited herself to questions that a friend or new acquaintance might ask: What's been happening since I talked to you last? How are your classes going? Who is this Alice that you're talking about? When did you join volleyball club? Then, at a point in the interview, Margaret began to describe a skit about “jocks,” “frat guys,” “Susie Sororities,” and other campus types. For a time, Margaret answered the interviewer's questions about the different types and how they could be identified and then interrupted herself:

1. Margaret: … I can't believe we're talking about this!

2. Interviewer: Why?

3. Margaret: I don't know. You just don't sit around talking about it that much with anybody. It's just kind of there.

4. Interviewer: So it's not the sort of thing you'd sit around in your dorm room and talk about to your roommates?

5. Margaret: No, you allude to it more than anything else.

6. Interviewer: What do you mean, allude?

7. Margaret: You know, little things, like, “Oh, you're wearing your add-a-beads today.” Things like that.

8. Interviewer: And that's all you have to say?

9. Margaret: Yeah, it's understood.

As might be expected, our participant–observation and interview data from a group of college-age Americans shows such types to be a conventional way of talking about other people.