OOM – Yeah, I actually learned the game when I played as walking home from shul friday night with my dad. Good memories.
But using the “animal, vegetable, mineral” question as a starting point may have originated with the electronic version (thanks for the correction about what kind of game it is); I would imagine (but it doesn’t have to be so) that it is meant to be all-inclusive of any physical item, i.e. that every item is one of animal, vegetable, or mineral. So dotnetter, that would make a leather boot animal, anything metal, wood, or even plastic would be mineral, barley soup would be vegetable, etc. – hey, waiter! I ordered barley, not vegetable!
dotnetter, want to think of one?