This article presents the results from ‘staged’ focus groups with lecturers and students from the UK and China that created a forum for a dialogue, where many of key ‘generic’ assessment task words and their interpretations were talked about. Results show very different interpretations, informed by factors such as ‘language’, ‘culture’ and ‘subject’. The authors suggest that these factors be used in an ‘anti-glossary’ approach, which they describe here.