What is the relation between words and action? How does a person decide, based on what someone is saying, what would be a fit reply? It is asserted that (1) every move combines independent semiotic features, to be interpreted under an assumption that social behavior is goal directed; (2) responding to actions is not equivalent to describing them; and (3) describing actions invokes rights and duties for which people are explicitly accountable. It is concluded that interaction does not involve a ‘binning’ procedure in which the stream of conduct is sorted into discrete action types. The argument is grounded in data from recordings of talk-in-interaction.