Methods and electronic devices for processing a spoken utterance associated with a user of an electronic device are disclosed. The method includes generating a textual representation of the spoken utterance having words, identifying a nonce word and a non-normalized word amongst the words, and generating a plurality of candidate textual representations based on the textual representation. The candidates have at least one of a first set of candidate textual representations and a second set of candidate textual representations, such that candidates from the first set are missing the nonce word from the words of the textual representation, and candidates from the second set have the non-normalized word from the words of the textual representation replaced by a normalized version thereof. The method includes comparing the candidates against grammars, and in response to a match, triggering an action associated with the grammar.