Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?!

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?!

The following is a message from the Talon advisors, Mr. Berg and Ms. Pfeiffer.

What do we mean by the last Talon theme of the year? Keep reading, if you are interested in applying to join our staff (deadline is 16 April). Or not applying to the staff, but just submitting to the last magazine of the 2011-2012 school year (deadline is 7 May)--and even then you don’t have to write on the theme. But keep reading to learn something new.

The phrase is a variation of the spoken game, Twenty Questions: One player is the answerer, choosing a subject but not revealing it to the other players, the questioners. Questioners take turns asking up to 20 questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no.” The phrase “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral” is from the Linnaean taxonomy of the natural world. In this version of Twenty Questions, the answerer explains at the start whether the subject belongs to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom. These categories may lead to humorous technicalities, such as a wooden chair being a vegetable (wood comes from trees), or a motorcycle jacket being both animal and mineral (leather from animal hide, and the zipper being metal).