animal, vegetable, or mineral

In the game 20 Questions, these are three categories that the answer could potentially fit into. Well, what is it? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? A: "All right, I'll go first. You ask the questions." B: "OK, animal, vegetable, or mineral?" A: "Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" B: "Mineral." A: "OK. Is it bigger than a bread box?"

vegetable

1. slang A person who is in a state of only partial conscious arousal, rather than being truly aware of and able to interact with their surroundings. A reference to the medical term "persistent vegetative state" used to describe such a condition. Promise me that you will take me off life support if I ever become a vegetable after an accident or something. So, what's the prognosis, doc? Is he going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life, or is there a chance that he can recover?

2. slang By extension, a person who is extremely and persistently slothful, intellectually unstimulated, or physically unfit. I just feel like mainstream television is aimed at keeping us all as a population of vegetables. I turned into quite a vegetable when I was stuck in the house with a shattered leg for two months.

vegetable

1. mod. alcohol intoxicated. Helen drank till she was totally vegetable.

2. n. someone who is brain-dead; someone who acts brain-dead; a person almost totally destroyed by drugs. Cable TV is turning me into a vegetable.

animal, vegetable, or mineral?

“20 Questions” was a popular parlor game in which players tried to guess the answer by asking no more than twenty questions. The person who answered the questions gave the players the initial hint of whether the subject was animal, vegetable, or mineral. The game's becoming the format of a very successful radio and then television quiz show beginning in the early 1940s spread the opening hint into general use. Anyone who innocently began a query with “I have a question” was liable to be met with “Is the answer animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

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References in periodicals archive

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The Bitter Truth