I HAVE A MINOR COMPLAINT: "Crispy"

I HAVE A MINOR COMPLAINT is an irregular feature of this site and is intended for entertainment purposes only. Do not take seriously! In its dyspeptic tone you may hear the growl of an old man as he hollers impotently at passing clouds. I am that old man.

We have come to that wonderful time of year when the earth begins its warming cycle. Delicate blossoms decorate the naked branches of cherry and plum trees, birds sing their joyous dawn symphonies, eyes grow watery and itchy in a green and sticky miasma of pollen. Spring has arrived.

Yet clouds threaten these blue skies. A troubling omen, a whisper, augurs dark and evil deeds. For as surely as patios fill with drinkers, their hands will reach for pilsners and helleses and Mexican lagers, and, inexorably, the word “crispy” will depart their cruel mouths. Oh horrors beyond measure!

To use “crisp” to describe lagers, those quenchers with a hard edge arising from the crackle of carbonation and whiff of sulfur, is a fine metaphor for something stiff. If beer can be called dry, then surely crisp is acceptable. “Crispy,” however, is unnecessary, low, crass, and wrong. Stop the madness!

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The word “crispy,” even before we turn to beer, starts out on infirm ground. An entirely redundant word, it’s an adjective with a meaning nearly identical to its y-less base word, also an adjective. To the extent the two are not identical, the differences are instructive. We would use crispy to describe something burned; we would not use it to describe a stick of celery. The sense of crisp that hints at fire’s role, the drying and curling and even burning—are more explicit in “crispy.”

The word started life as a metaphor in Old English, borrowing the Latin, crispus, meaning curled, to hint at things that were dry and brittle, as after spending time in an oven, or the sun. As a metaphor, it was extended to liquids as well as actions (in the sense of “brisk”). Crispy, on the other hand, is far more often pegged only to objects torched by heat—food principally. Because of this subtle difference, we use “crispy” precisely because it evokes heat and the resulting dry snap it produces. That’s why crisp works for celery, but crispy seems wrong. And if crispy doesn’t work with celery it is especially infelicitous for a lager, a liquid that is characterized by cold. Push a metaphor too far and it breaks. At a pub, then, the fried chicken is crispy; the beer is crisp.

In the beer world, incongruities abound. We have black India pale ales, slender stouts, sweet smoothie sours. I am resigned to them. But crispy is a bridge too far! It’s unnecessary and easily avoidable—just use “crisp!” Beyond that, it irritates me.

Oh, and please, do not get me started on crispy boi….