At one time, using words like “soporific” or “annihilate” in a missive like this might have been called “splurging.” “Splurge” appeared in English in the middle of the 1800s and originally meant “to make an ostentatious, showy display; to show off.” It might, for example, involve the same sort of behavior that in the 1500s would have been called “peacockizing” — strutting around in your flashiest, most fashionable outfit.
There’s at least as much ostentation and flashiness around today as ever, but we certainly don’t call it “splurging” any more. (We don’t call it “peacockizing” either, even though that seems like a pretty good word.) Nowadays “splurging” means “to spend a lot of money,” particularly as a one-time event. The change in the meaning of “splurge” seems to have occurred during the 1930s. Before then, somebody might be described as “…splurging about…with his dandy-cut trousers…”, and afterward, usage became more like “…I thought I’d splurge on a good…English armchair.” It’s not entirely clear how or why usage of “splurge” changed in that way.
The origin of “splurge” is probably as a combination of “surge” and “splash”. That combination is more consistent with the original meaning of the word, particularly the “splash” part. But another part of the mystery of “splurge” is just what the “surge” part was supposed to indicate — that is, if it’s really correct that “splurge” IS a combination of “surge” and “splash.”
By the way, since I splurged (in the old sense) in the first sentence by mentioning both “soporific” and “annihilate,” we should probably have a quick look at those. “Soporific” comes from the Latin “sopor” (sleep) with the suffix “-fic,” which means “to make.” It literally means “cause sleep,” which is exactly how it’s used. It entered English from the French “soporifique” in the 1600s, and ever since has meant anything that puts people to sleep, from a dull speech to a kind of drug. “Hibernian matrons thus of old / Their soporific stories told” is a verse from 1727.
“Annihilate” means to completely eradicate something. It comes from the Latin “annihilare” (to reduce to nothing” and also entered English around the 1600s. Since I found a “soporific” citation from 1727, here’s a line from Daniel Defoe in that same year: “God can no more be the Author of Evil, than he can Annihilate himself, and Cease to be.”
There are, of course, more everyday alternatives to both soporific (how about “boring”) and annihilate (“erase,” “delete”). But nowadays using the longer, more showy version would be more likely to be called “showy” unless you’re on some sort of game show where you have to buy a word, and you decide to really splurge.
