Times 23,539

[kettledrum]

25d. Half of our letters, a very small quantity. (4) - T - M.

Does anyone have any views on whether this should be:

atom - the 1st half of the alphabet - letters A to M, & presumably always small, and quantity =1 or:

item - half of the letters in 'The Times'; but presumably it could be a v large item, but quantity would equally be 1!

Am going out now for the rest of the day, but am looking forward to reading your thoughts on my return.

[JULIEWOOLIE]

K thinks its item half of THE TIMES

[sarumite]

My strong personal preference in this case is Atom, although there is of course a case for either option being correct. However, if K thinks the latter, who am I to suggest otherwise?

[kayakamina]

I favoured ITEM as the clue said OUR letters ie The Times.

I felt ( maybe wrongly ) that OUR instead of THE letters indicated this conclusion.

Against my case of course is the definition of small !

[Quizmonkey]

It HAS to be atom IMHO. 'Our letters' means the letters we as a nation use. Def of atom = very small quantity.

Reasons it can't be item: there is no anagram indicator (half of the letters of The Times = THET or IMES). And, of course, 'very small quantity' is NOT a definition of item, by any stretch of the imagination.

[lector]

Half of our letters = Alphabet Letters A to M ..... 13 letters out of 26 .....

[kettledrum]

Thank you everyone for your considered opinion. It would never have occurred to me that it was anything other than 'atom' if kayakamina (whose opinion I greatly respect) hadn't suggested item...and then there was that pesky word 'our' - although that (me, my, I , us etc) is more of a Guardian device than Times.
On balance I'm going to stick with atom especially after quizmonkey's rationale.
Very grateful for all your thoughts.