What in Thoth's name is this word???

[dreamer_easy]

The clue: "Mince pie first taken up by the few?"

The letters: _P_T_ _ _E

I shall run mad!!!!

Comments

[zazuomgwtf.livejournal.com]

omg this is going to drive me mad, thanks for sharing the misery.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Looks like "Spitfire"... it's a minced "pie first" and they were taken up by the few to whom was owed so much by so many...

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... he anagram's solid enough, but it seems like a pretty loose match for the definition (as does "upstroke"!)

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

I was assuming it was some sort of reference to Churchill's quote about the Battle of Britain - speaking about the RAF airmen, he said something along the lines of "never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few".

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

*reads children's Web page about Battle of Britain* *penny drops*

It's the "taken up" part that threw me, I think. Slightly odd way to describe flying a plane about. V. clever clue in that both the "mince" and the "first" look like instructions on assembling the answer!

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

... what I meant to say was that "mince pie" looks like a clue for "epi". Considerable time was spent wandering through that bit of the dictionary! :-)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Oh! Taken up INTO THE AIR, you nitwit!!!

[zazuomgwtf.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*
I was not thinking of anywhere in that direction. I applaud you!

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

an anagram of pie first is Spitfire. So a minced 'Pie first' is spitfire.

[ravenevermore.livejournal.com]

Bugger. someone beat me to it.

Crosswords Trivia

[piersb.livejournal.com]

Apparently newspapers in the US don't have cryptic crosswords.

I don't know why, but I find this faintly disturbing.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Good heavens! Come to think of it, I've never seen one there - I try to sample as many papers as I can while travelling. There must be exceptions!

[piersb.livejournal.com]

I've did some web research to confirm before posting, and you can get cryptics in "The Atlantic Monthly" and "The New Yorker".

But they're both magazines.

[piersb.livejournal.com]

Bah. Ungrammar.

Please mentally remove the 've in the previous post

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a famous one though, like the Times (except not actually from the UK...)?

I even think I've done one or two of this mysterious one of which I speak, and didn't get very far.

However, search for cryptic crosswords in Google, and all the sites seem to be Australian or English. Weird.

Kate: Was Spitfire in yesterday's DA? I sort of did it, for the first time in ages, albeit with a friend. We got all but 3, which I thought was fairly good (especially since I was doing it upsidedown).

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

On our trip to Canberra I cut a few crosswords out of various newspapers - this was labelled "English Crossword", so I assume it was from the Times. A very British clue, too. :-) I haven't been keeping up with the Herald x-word, alas - I have a book of completely vicious Guardian ones! Jon turns out to have an instinct for the things, and is certainly more help than the cats, though they're always eager to participate, primarily by sitting on the crossword, the atlas, etc