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?”

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Alfbern	-	Ancient Germanic
Math	-	Welsh Mythology
Zinaida	zee-nah-EE-dah	Russian
Ariel	AR-ee-əl (English), ER-ee-əl (English), AY-ree-əl (English)	Hebrew, English, French, Biblical, Biblical Greek
Mirna	-	Croatian, Serbian
Melissa	mə-LIS-ə (English)	English, Dutch, Ancient Greek, Greek Mythology