I don't call you out on eavesdropping, now do I?

I had this weekend off (woooo!) and so I took the opportunity to catch up with one of my friends over breakfast today. We used to talk a lot and though I see her in passing at the hospital, we haven't had a chance for awhile to just talk. Naturally, we had lots to say and the conversation was non-stop. There was an older couple sitting at the table next to us and as we got up, the woman made a comment about being smugly amused by my use of the word "like". To be honest, I was a little stunned about this uninvited commentary and frankly I found it condescending. If I was in a snarky mood, I would have replied with an observation on people that eavesdrop on other people's conversations...but I wasn't.

Not that I need to defend my use of the word like, but I limit my use of the word when I'm in the hospital (which amounted to 66 hours this week). I'm usually a little more deliberate about my word choice because you don't want to put your foot in your mouth while talking to a patient (or you want to at least limit those incidents). However, when I'm talking to a friend that I don't see as often as I like, and I'm happy to see them and we're having a fun conversation, I don't expect the speech police to be there, ready to critique me. I don't know which pseudo-intellectual deemed that profuse use of the word like was equal to having an IQ of 50 but I really resent that assumption. Frankly, if the alternate is talking slowly and pausing frequently to find the right word and being boring (and eavesdropping on other people's conversations because my own conversations suck), I will take my rapid and enthusiastic speech peppered with the word like.