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Birth day party? / WED 10-23-24 / Website that contributed to the decline of road atlases / Plastic option, for short / Pi's last name in "Life of Pi" / Ph.D. in Computing? / Soccer org. for Chelsea and Manchester / Genre for James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room," familiarly
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Constructor: Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic
Relative difficulty: Medium (maybe a little north of that, for me)
Theme answers:
- BRAILLE ALPHABET (16A: B.A. in Communications?)
- MICROSCOPE SLIDE (26A: M.S. in Biology?)
- POCKET HARD DRIVE (42A: Ph.D. in Computing?)
The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons usually run from August to May, with each team playing 38 matches: two against each other team, one home and one away. Most games are played on weekend afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures. [...] The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes, with a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. For the 2018–19 season, the average Premier League match attendance was 38,181, second to the German Bundesliga's 43,500, while aggregated attendance across all matches was the highest of any association football league at 14,508,981, and most stadium occupancies are near capacity. As of 2023, the Premier League is ranked first in the UEFA coefficient rankings based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons, ahead of Spain's La Liga. The English top-flight has produced the second-highest number of European Cup / UEFA Champions League titles, with a record six English clubs having won fifteen European championships in total. (wikipedia)
• • •
Well, if you have an advanced degree in a STEM field, have I got a puzzle for you. Hard drives and MATH TEAMs and website DEVs who all probably went to UNI at YALE (in Crossworld, everyone goes to YALE—it's mandatory). The theme is pretty clever and works pretty well, but it wasn't really MEANT for me. I don't even know what a POCKET HARD DRIVE is. Now, I can guess. I'm guessing it's a hard drive ... that's portable. [looks it up] Yep, that's exactly what it is, though (according to my search returns) they seem to be typically marketed as just that: "portable hard drives." I'm sure it's a common term in some worlds. But not mine. So since the answer couldn't be POCKET PROTECTOR (which would've been right on the money, in '80s computer geek iconography), I had no idea. I even stared at POCKETHARD for a bit, wondering if I was parsing it wrong ("... pocké-thard?"). Eventually I inferred the DRIVE part (shouldn't have taken me that long). The DRIVE area—therefore—ended up being the hardest part of the puzzle for me. DRIVE wasn't there to help out (for a while), and none of the Downs coming off of SLIDE were computing either. I had DEDUCE for DERIVE in there for a bit (30D: Obtain through logic). I basically finished the rest of the puzzle and then backed up into that section via ADDRESS (41D: Speak to). Then the HARD DRIVE part became obvious, *then* I polished off that DEV / DERIVE section. I enjoyed the concept today, though ... a couple things. One, BRAILLE ALPHABET ended up seeming like something of an outlier, since MICROSCOPE SLIDEs and POCKET HARD DRIVEs seem like things directly associated with the fields of study in their clues, whereas the field of "Communications" has nothing to do with Braille. The word "Communications" there is taken much more broadly. It's a minor thing, but a noticeable thing. There was something less-than-snappy about the themers, including the revealer, but I can't argue with the basic logic of the thing. Themewise, I think this holds up reasonably well.
As for the fill, the puzzle opens with a high and tight fastball—a real keep-you-on-your-toes clue at 1A: Birth day party? (DOULA, i.e. a "party" (i.e. one of the people present) at a birth)— so I went in prepared for a fight, but it all played at a fairly normal Wednesday level for me (the hard drive fiasco notwithstanding). Felt a little name-y in places, but probably not any namier than your usual puzzle, and anyway, I mostly knew the names. Naomi OSAKA and DEB Haaland are practically crosswordese by now. I've never read (or seen) Life of Pi but I somehow knew PATEL (and anyway, PATEL is a very common surname—not hard to infer from a few crosses) (I'm wondering now whether DEV / PATEL wasn't originally a cross-referenced pair of clues). The only episode of How I Met Your Mother I ever saw was the one that Will Shortz was on, so TED schmed, but crosses took care of things there. Hey, speaking of Will Shortz, there's a fascinating (and very encouraging) interview with him in the October/November issue of Brain & Life, all about his stroke earlier this year and his current recovery process (thanks to reader Mike S. for sending it to me).
The only answer in the whole puzzle that really made me wince was EPL (57D: Soccer org. for Chelsea and Manchester United). I have watched Premier League soccer a bunch over the years (idly, because it was there ... I can get sucked into sports, even sports I know nothing about, really ridiculously quickly if you put them in front of my face ... ask me about literally every Olympics event I've ever watched; doesn't take long for me to get invested). Anyway, Premier League ... Premier League ... that is the term. That is the only thing I've ever heard it called. I got the "E" today and thought "European ... something something? I thought Chelsea and Man U were Premier League teams." And they are. EPL (apparently) stands for English Premier League. This is news to me. It's apparently also news to whoever wrote the (vast) wikipedia entry on the Premier League, since the abbreviation "EPL" appears not one time in the entire thing. EFL appears in the first paragraph, but EPL, nowhere. So I'm just gonna trust that EPL is common online, in headlines, on ESPN and other sports channels and sports sites, etc. (it is, I just went and looked). But yeesh. I don't understand going out of your way to debut that one. Is Crossworld improved by the addition of Yet Another 3-letter abbrev., one that isn't even in common parlance? You actually say NFL, NHL, NBA ... but do you really say EPL? No, you say "Premier League." One thing that's come out of all this is that I now know that EPL also stands for Employment Practices Liability, a type of insurance you get if you're a business interested in violating your employees' rights. When you get sued for wrongful termination, discrimination, or harassment, EPL is there for you—the business, the real victim.
Bullets:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Bullets:
- 10A: Pick up the tab (BUY) — had the "Y," wrote in PAY. D'oh!
- 47A: "___ Mubarak!" (greeting around Ramadan) (EID) — Like DEB Haaland, this one should be a gimme for you by now. Amazing that EID didn't appear in the puzzle until 2019 (!?). If you think it's a marginal holiday (or, god help you, "obscure"), tell that to the two billion Muslims currently inhabiting the planet. What's truly fascinating is that EID actually did appear in the puzzle a bunch, in the olden days (1957-89) ... just not in Muslim festival form. [Image: Comb. form]? [Oath: Ger.]?? [Canton in Norway]??? [Leif ___, former news commentator]!?! Man, the pre-Shortzian world was wild.
- 7D: Hissing tire's problem (LEAK) — saw that the answer was four letters, wrote in FLAT with no hesitation.
- 44D: Pot (REEFER) — "Man, someone's tokin' some REEFER..."
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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66 comments:
Easy-Medium despite not knowing @Rex EPL (57D) and the TED person (48A). I considered paY before BUY at 10A but the B in BOBA was pretty solid.
I'd like to point out that Chelsea and Manchester United are also teams in the WSL, which is the equivalent of the "EPL" for women's football (soccer). I follow the WSL, but not the EPL, because of the higher level of sportsmanship and the fact that the players aren't all egotistical assholes.
The tough (but fair) clue for DOULA coming out of the gate had me backed up for a while. I would have preferred that there were more of a real-life connection between the theme clues and the answers, with the POCKET HARD DRIVE being the most tenuous of the bunch - but we can put that in quibble territory. So an “OK” Weds with a weak, but otherwise harmless theme.
Thanks for the link to the article about Will Shortz, @Rex. His grit and determination are impressive. I’m sure I’m one of very many people wishing him the best.
Another of the little quirks of the Fagliano era is that Wednesdays skew a little harder, on average, than they used to. The number of "don't think, just write it in" clues has gone down.
Thanks to Rex for posting the article about Mr. Shortz. The problem with high blood pressure is you don't feel like anything is wrong so it's easy to ignore.
The NW was tough out of the gate, with the DOULA misdirect. But the SW was where I struggled last and longest and thought I might not finish. I had the revealer but nothing else in that little 3x4 corner. Finally guessed AMEX as the “plastic option” then kicked myself for not recognizing AXE throwing, then everything else fell into place.
What Rex said, plus paY fits better with Pick up the tab than BUY.
Yeah, DOULA right off the bat, needed some crosses there, since it is something I learned from crosswords and have only encountered a couple of times elsewhere. Some disagreements with OFL today--BRAILLE has nothing to do with communication? Really? Also, if a tire is FLAT, it has ceased to hiss, so LEAK seemed obvious. I did do the PAY/BUY thing though. And, when I look up Premier League times on tv I always google" EPL on tv," so EPL was a gimme.
Read "Life of Pi" a while back so crosses needed there and TED could be clued any number of better ways for me. Fun seeing UNI, also said by Brits and Canadians and probably others.
Nice theme, nicely executed and a solid revealer, so I liked this one. Nice work, MS and BH. My Solve Begat Happiness, and thanks for all the fun.
Played very hard for me. I just couldn’t parse things appropriately and could t see some things that in hindsight were evident …
EPL is legit because there are other premier leagues (Scottish, Canadian to name a couple)
A FLAT tire does not HISS.
Another struggler with the SW corner but otherwise slightly smoother solve than normal. I don't love EPL but that's also how I feel about the endless baseball acronyms (if it's not RBI, panic), so in this case I'll take it !
Anyone else drop in OBGYN for 1A?
True!
Hey All !
1A DOULA, I think I've seen the word before, but it's tucked waaaay in the long lost corner of the ole brain, covered in dust and cob webs. Couldn't drag it out for the solve. Thought 1D was DEB, but had to Goog to double check. Then an alphabet run to get the O of OAR. Whoever named the OAR holder that was a real Thole. Har
D fest in SE, with crossing ADDs, and others. 11 D's in the SE/SCenter/ECenter.
Nice, all Themers and Revealer are 15's. Grid spanners are cool to see.
IDIDIT is a line of DIY products, I believe. Check your local hardware store.
Google Earth wiped MAPQUEST off the map. 😁
Hope y'all have a Happy Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
So what's with the revealer? I get the DEGREE part, but that''s the clues--what about the answers? Is it that they are all material objects? Even that doesn't work, as the BRAILLE ALPHABET is an abstract concept. You can write down the Latin alphabet, too, but that doesn't make the alphabet material. I'm hoping that I am just missing something, but I can't imagine what it might be.
Only yesterday the puzzle seemed to know the difference between MOOR and dock, but that was pretty short-lived. Just change "dock" to "buoy" in the clue and all would be well.
As for the clue for 33-A, please say it ain't so! Do women now get married wearing sashes with writing on them? Or is this something for an engagement party? Either way, one shudders. OK, I am now officially a crotchety old man.
I was going to complain that one doesn't dry dishes in the sinK, but that was my error.
By the way, what is a POCKET HARD DRIVE? I assume it's a real computer thing, but it sounds like an update of an old Mae West line about pickles.
I thought of that, but DEB stopped me. Since it was clued as "Birth day" rather than "birthday," I knew we were dealing with obstetrics.
Giovanni's Room as GAY LIT?? So reductive. I don't think Baldwin would approve!
No comments since mine, I'll come back later. I have to go get my driver's license renewed -- at my age it has to be done in person.
I'll just say me too for DEducE before DERIVE.
I’m really glad Rex liked the puzzle because I thought this was one of the best Wednesdays in a long while. I am embarrassed to say I hadn’t heard of Giovanni’s Room, so initially thought Baldwin had written some kidLIT, but GAGA and other crosses helped me out. After reading about the book, it puts me in the mind of The Talented Mr. Ripley so I’m putting it on my reading list.
W-a-y too hard for a Wednesday, I thought. I found the themers obscure and uninteresting. Sigh.
Fun puzzle but died in the SW, mainly for weird reason. Initially spelled MATTER with three T’s and it somehow didn’t register in the gray MATTER that this was odd. You can imagine what a mess this made of the rest of that corner because I was so absolutely certain that MATTter was correct. Gotta get some chemical analysis done on my coffee…
I'm right with OFL on EPL. I would have said no-one says that IRL, but I hate initialisms, especially when they change their meaning with no warning. Remember when BLM was the Bureau of Land Management? TMI stood for Three Mile Island?
Rex tells you what pocket hard drive is in the first paragraph
This one, not in my bandwidth - answers, PATEL (15d), CLERIC (6d), GAY LIT (49a); clues, "Nothing runs like a..." (52a), couldn't muster DEERE, "'Pearls' in a drink" (10d), even though the missus's regular and my sometime consumption over the years of bubble tea or boba, tapioca added.. never seen any reference to the tapioca as 'pearls' on a menu, and, "Birth day party?" (1a), that is, a party to/person present during a birth, didn't appear clever; but especially the spanners, which, as on Monday, felt forced.
The letter-to-word mapping, clear in the solve. Instead, the hodgepodge seemed.. awkward.
Backpedals: jEn (1d), could not put my finger on DEB, but anyone interested in politics, as I am, should; spAt (6a), which I felt wrong as I typed--though, add a "?" to "Oyster relative" and bingo; paY (10a); DEducE (30d).
Elsewise, Wednes appropriate. (Crushed my avg again, by half, but this because of move from phone to laptop.)
Addenda - jotted the preceding last night at finish. Now, on reading The Rex's divination of the spanners.. charitable.
Mesmerizing to watch uni. dorm-mate, John, take in all course work over his Braille reader.. while holding a conversation - more so than any fugue. Hyper aware, ultra sharp. A theme with focus on the sightless could hold interest, but not as an offhand amid a mishmash.
Perhaps the four wall-to-wall forced the creators' hands, you constructor people can figure this better than I.
Haha…I don’t think you’re crotchety! These days the bride-to-be and friends often do the equivalent of a bachelor (stag) party, and my guess is the sash is a corny option on that night out with “the girls.”
As for going to the BMV…In my state I think everyone has to “show up” in person and do the eye test, but you don’t have to take a driving test until you reach a certain age.
EPL is very common parlance
Phrase used to urge an idiot to proceed: DODO, DODO.
Marvin drunk? GAYLIT
Very easy Wednesday, but fun enough. Thanks, Matthew Stock and Brooke Husic.
Struggled with the whole Haaland, Birth day, Braille thing but did eventually see Doula (always mix it up with Docent) & then realized it's the Uber rich transportation secretary of the US cabinet, Deb Haaland & voila, Braille alphabet!
You’ve…never heard of…a bachelorette party? As in the bride’s equivalent of a bachelor party? Where the “bride-to-be” wears a SASH with “bride-to-be” on it? I thought this was about as ubiquitous a thing as the wedding itself, no?
Posted on the wrong day {oops}, so I am reposting.
Una cuestión de grado.
DOULA is a tough and funny way to wrap up an inscrutable beginning.
Ho hum theme but fun to solve anyway.
What do you wanna bet caber tossing was invented by drunken men?
I forgot who taught us the difference between MOOR and ANCHOR, but it keeps showing up in my life, so thank you.
Propers: 8
Places: 2
Products: 5
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 25 of 76 (33%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: Drunken boy smoocher: GAY LIT. When your reference is really long: REEFER.
Uniclues:
1 An oud.
2 Consultants calculating why he's a good boy.
3 Why you're weeping in the moors at dusk.
4 Dad explaining how curfew works.
1 MOOR STYLE AXE (~)
2 LAB'S MATH TEAM
3 MAPQUEST DIED
4 HARSH ADDRESS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Me as an miserly old man. PARTIAL TO CENTS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just checking on Google. My apologies seem to have mixed up Haaland with that trumpist nitwit devos. Transp.sec is of course Mayor Pete. Oops!
Yes, weddings seem to have all these additional parts these days - brides party with their girlfriends at some destination place, (so do the grooms, that hasn’t changed but now they go to a destination place too), there’s a night-before get-together and an after-party after everyone’s already spent several hours dancing and drinking at the reception, there’s a brunch the morning after. I guess I’m crotchety too. I and most of my friends had our wedding receptions in our parents’ back yards. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a lot of very fun weddings that included all these things, including those of my children. But it’s a lot more expensive.
Easy and with a clever reveal, but IMHO dull on the theme-answer front. BRAILLE ALPHABET has some SPARK, but MICROSCOPE SLIDES and POCKET HARD DRiVE....a lot of work on crosses to come up with such unexciting answers.
Was the choice of BUY or paY a trap carefully laid at 10A? I fell right into it and had a hard time getting 10D or 11D immediately thereafter. My "pearls" looked for all the world like pOBA -- and I had no idea what that was.
Also, when I obtain something from logic, I DEDUCE (30D). That blasted 2nd D made it look like the answer to the Tinder clue was going to be FIDO. Which was perfectly silly. But eventually I straightened everything out.
I enjoyed the resistance of a harder-than-usual Wednesday puzzle and I thought the revealer worked. But I do have the sneaking suspicion that the idea for the puzzle occurred to the constructors first -- and that they then set about finding a revealer for it. (I have no idea whatsoever why I think that.) Anyway, a very nice Wednesday.
Can somebody explain AMEX as an answer to 50 down, plastic option for short?
Really wanted the third themer to follow suit with two words, the first beginning with Ph and the second with D. But maybe I'm just overthinking it.
The theme entries are inconsistent: Ph.D. isn’t an initialism like the others are, because the first two letters stand for philosophy.
I have owned and operated an IT business for 15 years and have ne er used the term POCKET HARD DRIVE.
It was the first answer I thought of, but I never write anything in without confirming at least one cross -- and there weren't any crosses. And the obvious USA made OBGYN impossible.
Coming from the North of England I expected 2D (item put in a thole) to be wood or door as in the “Put wood in ‘thole” but alas it was only 3 letters.
The clue was “hissing tire’s problem.” That seems acceptable to me.
In keeping with the B.A,/M.A./Ph.D. spirit of the puzzle, I offer two Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) clues:
1. "Don't complicate things!"
2. Amer. beer known best by its initials
Not knowing 1D or 2D immediately, I stared at these letters for 16A: AILLEALP; and I thought, "At least one of my down answers must be wrong!" It looked like a totally random assortment of letters that could never have anything to do with a degree in Communications. But it turns out they were all correct.
Answers:
1: K.I.S.S. (off the K at 19A)
2. P.B.R. (off the P at 15A--"What'll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer!")
Cool puztheme idea. Liked the increasin degree order of BA, MS, PHD, also. And the grid-spannin themers were indeed quite nice.
The revealer was kinda unnecessary, tho. Instead, woulda luved to see an extra theme entry along the lines of:
{B.S. in Trump campaign claims fact-checking?} = ?
staff weeject pick: DEV. Ahar! Just as M&A suspected! The DEVil is now buildin some of them websites.
Primo weeject stacks, in the NW & SE, btw.
And speakin of weejects, how'bout all them weeject-sized no-knows, today? At our house, they included: EPL. EID. DEB. TED.
And then there is BUY, with its patently PAY-ish {Pick up the tab} clue.
Might as well of gone with a clue of:
{Crime does not ___} = BUY.
Good to read the encouragin Shortz update -- thanx, @RP. We need him back, to clue up BUY correctly. And much, much more.
And thanx for gangin up on us, Ms. Husic darlin & Mr. Stock dude.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
Medium-tough, mostly because like @Rex I was not familiar with POCKET HARD DRIVE plus I had Fuel before FIRE so that section took a bit of staring and was last to fall. The rest was on the easy side.
Reasonably smooth grid, novel/cute theme, liked it.
CM
Describing Giovanni’s Room as gay lit is reductive? Huh? That’s absurd. It is THE ne plus ultra of gay lit.
Hell, it’s so prominent in that world that Philadelphia’s oldest Gay bookstore is called Giovanni’s Room. Gor the last 51 years. Sheesh.
CM
Giovanni’s Toom in Philadelphia claims to be the first LGTBQ and lesbian bookstore in the country. It’s absurd to claim describing the book as gay lit is reductive.
I am always amazed at how the whole wheelhouse/wavelegnth thing works.
This was the easiest Wednesday for me, possibly ever. It was like fill-in-the-blank easy. And I am not a very good solver based on how OFL and the commenters talk about puzzles. Funny how that works.
There was a Universal crossword once with an initial-based theme that I liked much more than today's NYT:
[This D.J. likes big hits!] DEREK JETER
[This A.C. gives me a chill!] AGATHA CHRISTIE (!)
[This F.M. is known for playing rock!] FREDDIE MERCURY
[This P.R. was for the American Revolution!] PAUL REVERE
It came to mind when I saw what was going on with the BA, so I was looking for a first name-last name pair with the initials BA.
There are times that I instantly see what a "?" clue is getting at, but still struggle to get the answer without crosses. 1A was one of those times.
"Just change "dock" to "buoy" in the clue and all would be well." I am as weary of pointing this out as blog denizens are of having me do so, so it's good to have somebody else pick up the slack.
The Sailor approves this message.
I seem to be the only bother by ‘AllPros’. I was solving downs first and had AllStar at first, which threw off the corner. Even when I realized that it wasn’t ‘Star’ it took me to the very end to get the right answer. I know of All-Star athletes, but I’ve never in my life heard of all-pros. Is it just me?
As a sometime published Xword author, I feel how hard it is to have the theme answers and revealer as 15’mers. And fun and hard enough to please , and original. Just when you think all themes have already been thought of.
I agree that this was very easy, in spite of questionable entries like EPL and MATH TEAMS and POCKET HARD DRIVE, which all became inevitable from the crosses. I came in well under my Wednesday average time.
Interesting new theme. Here in Canada I've only ever seen the science degrees abbrev'd as B.Sc. and M.Sc., never B.S. or M.S.
I went to high school with a blind guy and he would take his notes using a Braille machine. While the teacher talked, in the back we would hear this quiet "chunka-chunka" sound. And it was amazing how in a crowded hallway between classes, he would somehow avoid running into people... listening for footsteps, I guess.
I’m with you Jon! This felt very easy (but fun) for a Wednesday. Usually I struggle with a puzzle only to come here and see people consider it super easy. Nice to have the show on the other foot for once! I’m sure it’ll be back to normal again tomorrow. Cheers!
I did the exact same thing!! Took me forever to straighten it out. Grr.
I had DEDUCE for DERIVE in there for a bit, as well. Not a fan of this one, however.
egsforbreakfast
About
GAYLIT.
Very funny pun.
Thought struck me I know lit only from crosswords. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the pun.
Hack Mechanic
Uber rich ?!
Doesn’t seem easy to confuse with the Uber rich fascist in the national news for so long.
Different sports. Baseball (and many others) has all-stars. Gridiron football has All-pros.
Some people refer to credit cards as "plastic"
Yes. The NFL has All-Pros, just to name one.
Thought 1A had a very good clue. Fortunately, I knew DEB but initially I had several wrong words in that corner.
tec (obviously I was thinking of tech) instead of DEV in the E caused some confusion.
Some complained but I liked MATHTEAM. Took a while to get.
Pearls in a drink. 4 letter drink. New crosswordese BOBA immediately came to mind. Anyway, I must have seen the bubbles called pearls somewhere. Never had the drink. What else could it be? That took care of the problematic BUY.
Otherwise pretty easy puzzle. Knew that moor would raise hackles. Not a boater. Don’t care. BTW just looked it up. As a verb, definition:“tie to a dock”. Boaters, landlubbers had settled the issue a long time ago. That’s language!
Liked the puzzle.
Is this another case of an arbitrary article of convenience, here an indefinite one? It's not THE BRAILLE ALPHABET, A MICROSCOPE SLIDE or A POCKET HARDDRIVE, so A MATTER OF DEGREE breaks that pattern. Just saying...
The behavior of the dude in Rex's REEFER clip doesn't ring true for me. Someone smoking weed is more likely to offer a hit off the joint to a passerby than to go ballistic and threaten to physically attack them. This guy looks like he's totally wired on some kind of speed/coke/PCP concoction.
I'm in the DEDUCE camp for 30D ""Obtain through logic". I think of DERIVE as being more like something a MATH TEAM would do.
"Will that be cash or charge?"
"I'll use plastic." Hands cashier an AMerican EXpress card.
Plastic is slang for credit cards. AMEX is short for American Express.
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