Categories is a

word game Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties. Word games are generally used as a source of entertainment, but can additionally serve an educational purpose. Young ...

where players attempt to list words that fit into particular categories, all starting with the same letter. Players start by deciding on a list of categories between them, such as "town" or "actor", and each writing that list on a sheet of paper. A letter of the alphabet is then chosen at random, and players have a set amount of time to write something for each category that starts with that letter. When the time is up, players swap sheets and score one another's attempts. An entry unique among the group is worth 2 points, whereas an entry shared with another player scores 1 point. The player with the highest total is the winner. For subsequent rounds, a different letter is chosen. U.S. president

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

is said to have been a fan of the game, one biography describing his family as playing it "endlessly".

Guggenheim

In the variant known as "Guggenheim", players write a list of categories down one edge of the paper, and five columns across it, each column headed with a different letter so as to spell a five-letter word.

Commercial versions

Game designer Richard Onanian's commercial game ''

Facts in Five A fact is a true datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means. For exa ...

'' is based on a description of Kennedy playing Categories in a 1964 edition of ''

This Week This Week may refer to: * ''This Week'' (1956 TV programme), a 1956–1992 British current affairs television programme broadcast on ITV * ''This Week'' (2003 TV programme), a weekly British political discussion television programme that aired on ...

'' magazine. The 1988

Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known as Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. It remained family owne ...

game ''

Scattergories ''Scattergories'' is a creative-thinking category-based party game originally published by Milton Bradley in 1988. The objective of the 2-to-6-player game is to score points by uniquely naming objects, people, actions, and so forth within a set ...

'' is a reimplementation of Guggenheim, with a

20-sided die A die (: dice, sometimes also used as ) is a small, throwable object with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. Dice are used for generating Statistical randomness, random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including List ...

being used to generate random letters.

References

{{reflist Paper-and-pencil games Word games Quiz games