I have been having these kinda loopy English discussions with Taiwanese people lately.
It’s all about cookies and crackers.
For me, it was always pretty simple - crackers are predominantly salty in taste, cookies are sweet. And it is not about
leavened or unleavened from what I’ve seen, tasted and heard named as either a cookie or a cracker.
Some Taiwanese people insist I am wrong in my classification, and stand by vague assertions from whatever received classification system they are using.
Anybody got any insight into how they, or you, are classifying cookies and crackers?
And I haven’t even tried to explain biscuits …
I have never had a problem explaining it, but sometimes confusion is caused by the fact that one Chinese word–bing gan–was somehow deemed sufficient, by Confucius perhaps, to cover both concepts. I suggest you mention this damning fact the next time such a conflict arises; it should be sufficient to any reasonable person to show that you are the de facto expert when it comes to thin baked goods. If there were a question about dumplings for example, or rice, you would certainly defer to their wisdom, no?
Ah - many thanks - I think I get it now!
Reminds me of crocodile and alligator. I am told Chinese only has one name for both. I think I like the (simplified) Chinese classification better!
Biscuit covers both. Problem solved. 
and 