/**
  * This is to ensure that we're dealing with field prefixes
  *
  * @param term this is the original term string
  * @param tokenType this is the default to use if no field prefix is present
  * @return a new {@link Term}
  */
 protected Term getTerm(String term, TokenType tokenType) {
   // strip operators
   if (term.startsWith(OPERATOR_AND)) {
     term = term.substring(1);
   }
   String field = tokenType.name(); // default
   if (term.contains(FIELD_SEPARATOR)) {
     int pos = term.indexOf(FIELD_SEPARATOR);
     field = term.substring(0, pos);
     term = term.substring(pos + 1);
   }
   return new Term(field, term);
 }