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In a book which I'm reading there is a sentence like this:

A normal household raisin weighs about a gram—so a raisin plus antiraisin combination would be a dehydrated weapon of mass fruitation.

Here is the context:

When two particles are totally annihilated, a huge amount of stored energy is released. To be specific, a single gram of antiparticles combined with a gram of normal particles would release more than forty kilotons of explosive force, which is more than twice as powerful as the atomic bombs dropped by the United States in World War II. A normal household raisin weighs about a gram—so a raisin plus antiraisin combination would be a dehydrated weapon of mass fruitation.

I don't understand the phrase "household raisin" and "mass fruitation". What does they mean in that sentence/situation?

The word "fruitation" doesn't even appear in the dictionary.

Does household raisin mean the raisin made by people in a house rather than the industry?

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    A “household” raisin is a normal, everyday raisin, the kind you’d find in any household, in your own household, the kind of raisin you’re already familiar with and don’t need any further description of. What the British would call a “common or garden-variety” raisin. Such a normal raisin, upon annihilation with a raisin of equal mass made of antimatter would explode with 2x more power than the combined power of the atom bombs the US dropped on Japan in WWII. But since a raisin is a fruit, it wouldn’t be a weapon of mass destruction, like a real nuke, but a weapon of mass fruitation. A pun.
    – Dan Bron
    Mar 3, 2018 at 5:47

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The correct definition of "household" in this context is:

Any of various substances or commodities suitable or intended for domestic use. —OED

In other words, "household raisins" are raisins you'd find in a supermarket (here's an example), or in someone's house.

"Weapon of mass fruitation" is a snowclone of "weapon of mass destruction". The impression I get from it is that it's the same as a WMD... except fruitier. It is supposed to be funny, because the idea of weaponized fruit is absurd (although there are so many different snowclones of the expression "WMD" that I think it just sounds lame).

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  • Weaponized fruit has been around for a while now
    – Jim
    Mar 3, 2018 at 6:30
  • Would that make it a melted snowclone or merely slushy?
    – KarlG
    Mar 3, 2018 at 12:26

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