Quote:The person who wrote this is a professional writer. Language is his tool, his material. By misusing words, he shows himself to be a poor workman, incompetent in his profession. Of course, it could have been a good writer keeping a character in persona. However, those sentences were uttered by Dr. Daniel Jackson in an episode of SG-1. A mistake like that, in the mouth of the world's greatest linguist, is probably not done intentionally to develop the character.
Writers do also have to take their target audience into account (I often had to dumb things down when I was writing for community newspapers). Though in this case, I think you're probably correct in assuming the writer just did a bad job.
I don't really think exterminate would have been better however. It has too many connotations of being a deliberate act (even though its definition doesn't state this). If a tree fell over and killed an entire family, I don't think anyone would say that the tree had exterminated the family. Eradicated definitely would have been better, or even "wiped out."
"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?"
-W.C. Fields
-W.C. Fields