Partial ventilatory support modalities are ill defined and different perceptions about these modes might depend on geographic region. Exemplary on two recent publications investigating airway pressure release ventilation (APRV) in an adult ICU population, the question is investigated whether research in ventilation modes can be performed with the current definitions. The lack of precise definitions precludes drawing meaningful conclusions from these studies, as it remains unclear how these patients were actually ventilated and whether or how much spontaneous breathing was factitiously preserved. An argument is made to develop a new taxonomy of ventilation modes.