Even though there have been attempts by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and IEEE to standardize terms and definitions, there are no industry wide practiced terms and definitions related to software development. IFPUG has developed some standard terms and definitions related to function points, but these terms and definitions need to be applied to a variety of different software environments.
Clients who have standardized their terminology within their own environments have seen significant jumps in productivity. That is, they have reduced the number of verbs used to describe transactions and other events.
Imagine if we compared a blue print document used for construction purposes with a typical software design document. While the blue print uses standard terminology the software design document uses a variety of different terminology to describe the same exact thing.