ETIR vs. EIR

Stop! You are under arrest by the grammar police!

Word court is now in session.

As many Acers know, abbreviations are widely used in Acerdom. Abbreviations exist for songs, tv shows, cities, you name it! Even the band's name is abbreviated most of the time. These shortened forms are well known and their use is generally agreed upon. LL is "Lucky Love", DTA is "Don't Turn Around" and so on. It's pretty basic. There are a few abbreviations, however, that cause a little bit of 'controversy'. Well, it's no "stop the presses!" controversy but it's somewhere along the lines of "Ace of Base" versus "Ace Of Base", I suppose. The most controversial abbreviation I can think of would have to be ETIR, or if you will EIR. "Every Time It Rains" or "Everytime It Rains".

So, should it be ETIR or EIR? Believe it or not, "everytime" does not exist in the English language. Go ahead, look it up! Try and find it in a dictionary. You won't find it there. You will find "every time" however. So, if you want to be technical about your abbreviations, the correct form would then be ETIR. (Those of you who have a North American CS single can pull it out and look at the back. Arista printed "From their forthcoming album, EVERY TIME IT RAINS" in small print at the bottom.)

But, if you're not a language freak, and you've visted the BMI site (http://repertoire.bmi.com/), you know that the songwriters themselves have registered the song as "Everytime It Rains". It does happen to be the "legal title" of the song. This would definitely lend creedence to the EIR supporters.

But really, who gives a flying fig about the abbreviation? What we all know with certainty is that the song enchants us. Forget all this grammatical nonsense. Just listen to that Linn-infused ballad again and let it take you away. Let music take the lead.