Force Tags to act like Categories. Delete categories.

1. I swear I did searching.
2. I am new to WordPress.
3. I find Tags & Categories redundant. Also, I prefer the word “tags” as it is three syllables less than categories and also takes up less space on a page.

Question is the same as topic title: Is there a way to force tags to behave like categories? And then, ultimately, remove Categories from the Dashboard? Without coding, that is, because I’m dense.