the national practice of a given language." For instance, while the German compound Altertumswissenschaft (the study of antiquity) could be abbreviated Altert.wiss. by strictly dividing its components, it is more commonly abbreviated as Altertumswiss. to reduce ambiguity and adhere to German orthographic norms.

A major use of ISO 4 is to abbreviate the names of scientific journals using the LTWA. For instance, under ISO 4 standards, the Journal of Biological Chemistry is cited as