I voted “other”:
Crispy strikes me as inferring less than complete or true crispness. I’m also not 100% sure it’s a real word that wasn’t originally used in some kind of marketing context.
For a long time, McD’s used to advertise “chocolatey chip cookies”, which always made me wonder if the cookies contained even a milligram of actual chocolate. This has probably influenced my personal definition of crispy.
Apple crisp has a crispy topping. If you put crisp apples in it, it tastes better. “Crisp” implies something that can be described as sharp, tailored, crunchy. It’s almost like a feeling.
I stand corrected: crispy is attested as early as 1378, although in reference to the texture of one’s hair.
Without reading others’ opinions in the thread first, my feeling is that the words are different. “Crispy” things are brittle and crunch because you’re cooked them–like potato chips or fried chicken. “Crisp” things crunch when you eat them because they are fresh and juicy, though–like an apple or a piece of celery.
You could say a cracker is crispy. But it’s not crisp. I don’t know why, but this distinction feels right.
Apples are crisp *and *crispy. A crisp morning happens in many parts of the US, provided it is not too dark or cloudy.
As an experiment, I typed “crackers are crisp” and “crackers are crispy” into Google (with the quotation marks). The results were interesting. Crackers are crisp was the more popular phrase, garnering 268 hits to crackers are crispy’s 185. (This was after paging to the end of the listings, ignoring Google’s usual randomly generated lies claiming thousands or even millions of hits.)
More significant, though, was how the phrases seemed to be used. While I didn’t tally them, my impression was that Crackers are crispy was more likely to be used in two contexts: descriptions of cheese-flavored crackers (which supports the association with oil and fat) and in directions in recipes (such as “bake until or crackers are crispy”, which supports the association with processing). Crackers are crisp however, was more frequently found embedded in declarative sentences: “Cream crackers are crisp dry biscuits which are eaten with cheese,” “Sesame Crackers are crisp rectangles sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and a light garlic spice,” and “The crackers are crisp and mild in flavor and taste great with a spread or dip.”
So if you have a greasy cracker, or one that you just pulled out of the oven, it’s crispy, but if it’s dry and came from your pantry, it’s probably crisp.
My definition: Crisp just means it will break easily. Crispy means it will break into tiny pieces.
Upon reading the thread, this covers both the cooked versus raw distinction, as cooked foods are more likely to be somewhat brittle, and it covers the level of crisp(i)ness. It may even touch the cooked in fats part, as that may just be the most common way to make something crispy.
BTW, brittle would be reserved for either non-foods or food that breaks apart even more easily than crispy food, to the point where it’s hard to eat without breaking.
The phrases “stays crispy in milk”, and “stays crisp in milk” both sound ok to my ears, and imply the exact same meaning, though the crispy one is much more commonly used. Despite this, I would always use crispy, not crisp, to describe cereal. (Though I wouldn’t bat an eye if I heard someone say his cereal was crisp.)
Where it really becomes interesting is when crisp is used as a noun. Crisps are most certainly crispy. But according to the consensus here, people would have to agree that crisps are not crisp! :eek: