What is it about the magic of the moment, being present when the world turned, that is so important an element in individual and social behaviour? The oral communicative moment brings together ways of speaking and pre-existing relations between speaker and audience in such a way that success or failure can seal fates or unpick impending disaster. Graham Furniss examines the nature of such moments, whether memorable public occasions or moments in the daily flow of human interaction, and situates them in the culturally defined expectations that determine what are, and what are not, appropriate genres of speech for particular kinds of event. He argues for examining the characteristics of orality in the context of contemporary social, political and economic processes as people dicuss, decide, change tack, and become aware of the broader consensus beyond their own personal experience.