And they gave each other bits. Ted pointed a hot dog and said, “You will be annihilated.”
Juan answered, “You, you will be destroyed.”
“No, no,” said Ted. “You, you will be annihilated. You are not of the body.”
Juan raised a french fry and said, “You will be obliterated. You are not of the body.”
“I love the word obliterate,” Ted said.
“You are not of the body so you will be obliterated,” Juan said.
Ted swallowed his bite of hotdog. He said, “I wonder if you can obliterate or annihilate just one person. You will be annihilated. It doesn’t sound right if you say it for just one individual. For example, if you stomped on an ant and said, I annihilated that ant, it wouldn’t work. Likewise destroy. Destroy is too general. Can you destroy or obliterate a single ant?”
“You mean it would be better with a planet, like if you said, We’re going to annihilate your planet,” Juan said, pounding on an upturned glass bottle of ketchup. “You, we will annihilate your planet. Or, You, we will obliterate your solar system.”
“Sure. Or something like, We’re going to annihilate your entire race,” Ted said, “as it implies that everything will be gone. It has to do with total loss or total destruction. And another thing is this: since you can’t kill a rock, a rock can be annihilated or obliterated, but it can’t be killed, so you’d use obliterated. But since a rock is pretty small that seems like overkill too, so we’d use the word break or busted and reserve annihilated or obliterated for massive scale mayhem that may include the killing of millions. But what about the countryside, as in General Sherman’s actions: can you obliterate the country side? That doesn’t seem right.”
“Because the countryside is living,” Juan said. “Destroyed would be better for that. Or razed. Obliterate,” Juan said. “It sounds like it should come with a lot of flying rocks and big time physical damage. We’re going to obliterate your freakin planet. Or, That mountain, we must obliterate it or The planet was obliterated by a meteor or If we don’t do something and do something quick the earth will be obliterated.”
Ted said, “Imagine someone breaks into your house and they have a knife and they say I’m going to annihilate you. It doesn’t work. Now that’s overkill. These situations demand precision, so the robber or killer would say, I’m going to slice you or kill you. Or if he said I’m going to fuck you up then that would mean he was just nervous.”
“I think the problem was: Landru, since he was a program, he didn’t know who he was actually talking to,” Juan said. “The program couldn’t take into account linguistic nuance or couldn’t notice the difference between a small group and an army. This damned ketchup,” Juan said. “If it doesn’t squirt soon, I will annihilate it. I will annihilate you,” he said, hoisting the bottle.
“Or destroy,” Ted said. “That might work. That’s why plastic bottles are better.”
“This glass bottle is definitely not of the body,” Juan said.
“You are not of the body,” Ted said to the ketchup bottle. “You will be destroyed.”
“Or obliterated,” Juan said. “I could use that now. You, I will obliterate you.” He reached for a knife.
