People sometimes appear to say one thing when they are actually doing something quite different. Take this exchange between a husband and wife about his tutoring sessions (4.1.129):

Ken: and I'm cheap, —

Margaret: I've always felt that about you,.

Ken: oh shut up, (- - laughs) fifteen bob a lesson at home, -

When Margaret says “I've always felt that about you,” she isn't really, actually, or literally asserting that she always felt Ken was cheap, a serious use of her utterance. She is only acting as if she were making that assertion in order to tease him, a so-called nonserious use of her utterance (Austin, 1962). Nonserious language is the stuff of novels, plays, movies, stories, and jokes, as well as teasing, irony, sarcasm, overstatement, and understatement. Life is hard to imagine without it, yet it has been slighted in most theories of language use.

Common to all nonserious actions is a phenomenon I am calling layering. When Margaret merely pretends to assert that she always thought Ken was cheap, she is taking actions at two layers. On the surface, she is making the assertion, a nonserious action.