Editing Twenty questions (section)

{{Short description|Spoken guessing game using yes–no questions}}
{{About|the spoken game|the toy|20Q|the computer-human game show|20Q (game show)}}

'''Twenty questions''' is a [[spoken game|spoken]] [[parlour game|parlor game]] which encourages [[deductive reasoning]] and [[creativity]]. It originated in the United States by Maggie Noonan and was played widely in the 19th century.<ref>Walsorth, Mansfield Tracy. [https://books.google.com/books?id=VzoVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7 ''Twenty Questions: A Short Treatise on the Game''], Holt, 1882.</ref> It escalated in popularity during the late 1940s, when it became the format for a successful weekly radio quiz program.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

In the traditional game, the "answerer" chooses something that the other players, the "questioners", must guess. They take turns asking a question which the answerer must answer with "yes" or "no". In variants of the game, answers such as "maybe" are allowed. Sample questions could be: "[[What's My Line?|Is it bigger than a breadbox?]]", "Is it alive?", and finally "Is it this pen?" Lying is not allowed. If a questioner guesses the correct answer, they win and become the answerer for the next round. If 20 questions are asked without a correct guess, then the answerer has stumped the questioners and gets to be the answerer for another round.

{{anchor|divideAndConquer}}
Careful selection of questions can greatly improve the odds of the questioner winning the game. For example, a question such as "Does it involve technology for communications, entertainment or work?" can allow the questioner to cover a broad range of areas using a single question that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no", significantly narrowing down the possibilities.