Non-standard Terms

A non-standard term differs from the usually accepted spelling within a community. A term is considered non-standard if it has the same definition as the more usual and has a different spelling.

Since we are a US-based organization, we favor American spelling conventions.

Typically in the UCF, non-standard terms fall into these categories:

  • a spelling variant

  • a hyphen or space differentiation

  • an unconventional, "off-the-wall" term or phraseology

What are non-standard terms

  • a new variant of commonly used terminology

  • a phrase that directly corresponds to an existing term, but is worded differently (i.e. ‘processing the personal data’ vs ‘personal data processing’)

  • a shortened version of a term or one that contains an acronym (i.e. ‘VLAN ID’ to ‘virtual local area network identifier’)

  • a word or phrase that does not have it’s own definition

What are not non-standard terms

  • a term for which a definition can be found either in an AD or an industry source

  • a term that is conceptually different than its standard counterpart (i.e. information technology process is NOT non-standard for information technology procedure)

  • a term that is commonly used in industry sources

  • some criteria that could signal "commonly used":

    • used in governing body sources,

    • used business and media sources,

    • used in technical documentation

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