An apparatus, program product and method utilize automated analysis
techniques to assist in the determination of acceptable usages of
linguistic terms (e.g., words, phrases, acronyms, etc.). In particular,
an acceptable usage of a linguistic term may be determined by scanning a
plurality of documents for variants (e.g., based on differing spellings,
punctuation, capitalization, meaning or definition, etc.) of the term,
and tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of such variants found
in the plurality of documents during scanning. By tracking occurrences of
linguistic term variants, users may be able to use such statistical
information to select which of the available variants represents an
acceptable usage, or even a most acceptable usage, of a term. Scanned
documents may be retrieved from the Internet, and scanning may occur
while a user is browsing the Internet.