IPv6 terminology question

[Daniel Stickney <dstickney@pronto.com>]

Hello all,
        
I am searching for an authoritative answer to my question on IPv6
terminology. I hope this is an appropriate list to ask on, and if it is
not I sincerely apologize. So far in my searching I have mostly been
finding inconsistency, confusion and guessing. I would like to know if
there is an official term for the colon separated 16-bit groups in an
IPv6 address. I'm asking here because I believe an answer from members
of the IETF is as official as it gets. 
        
Personally I've been calling them "words"; as in "an IPv6 address is
made up of 8 colon separated words."  I see the term "word" used in some
other whitepapers and documents published about IPv6 (The TCP/IP Guide,
ISBN-13: 9781593270476, p. 379, and also
http://documents.iss.net/whitepapers/IPv6.pdf). I also see the term
"octet" used, but I believe incorrectly since only an IPv4 address is
four 8-bit groups, or octets. I've seen "quartet", "pieces" and "quad"
used, and heard guesses at "hexadecitet", "double-octet" and many
others.

I'm starting to discuss IPv6 in a professional environment with other
network engineers and I want to make sure I'm using proper terminology
during discussions and for documentation. Plus all the people who I've
seen asking this same question can reference this thread for an answer
themselves.

Thanks in advance for your time,

-- 
Daniel Stickney
Operations Manager - Systems and Network Engineer