The study of emergency management is inevitably the study of words and of those elements of language that act like words. Emergency managers, to a degree that may exceed the practice of many other managers, depend on words to standardize performance, communicate information and decisions, describe situations, etc. However, our meanings often differ from place to place and document to document, making the management and interpretation of information difficult. In 2000 the State and Local Emergency Management Data Users Group (SALEMDUG) initiated an effort to identify standard emergency...