Symbology is a big word that refers to a simple process—a shorthand of symbols or abbreviations to stand for longer words, phrases, concepts, calculations, and so forth. Symbols let us communicate economically with others who either are familiar with them or can tease out their meanings.
As do all industries, the oil and gas industry has its own symbols. Oil & Gas Journal has adopted most of them. It does not explain b/d, fph, or psia because editors assume readers (of OGJ) will understand the abbreviation, indeed even mentally say “barrels per day.”
But all linguistic symbols arise and evolve just as language has, just as any organism in nature has and does. That evolution, however, often follows a logic that sometimes may be illogical. That’s because humans invented it.
Some of us see problems with a certain untidiness in our industry’s symbology. Enter retired geologist Chuck Norman. Trained at the California Institute of Technology and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he spent more than 25 years helping Conoco find oil and gas.
Norman believes industry’s sloppy use of symbolic “m,” “M,” and “MM,” and all the combinations with each other and with other letters, threatens understanding in writing and accuracy in conversions. In fact, he wants to jettison the Roman numeral “M” (meaning thousand) in favor of the widely used and rarely misunderstood “k”—also meaning thousand.
The meaning of M
Norman’s concern has had him culling publications in his industry for examples of confusing or erroneous use, specifically the AAPG Explorer and the Houston Geological Society Bulletin. These are no dry academic tomes but among the most important publications for active geologists.
In them, Norman has found “MMcfg/d,” “Mmcf/d,” “mmcfd,” as well as several instances in which mcf clearly means million—not thousand—cubic feet. He has found “MMBOE,” “MMBO,” as well as “mmbo.”
In more recent issues, in which both metric and English units appear side by side, Norman has identified apparent mathematical errors resulting from authors’ confusing use (or understanding) of various forms of M. He will present his argument in the November 2008 issue of the HGS Bulletin.
And it’s a convincing argument. Such inconsistencies irritate and distract readers even if calculations don’t always suffer because of them.
How does OGJ fare under Norman’s scrutiny?
In OGJ, readers find Mcf for “thousand cubic feet,” but also find kg, kv, and kw. For “million,” they find MMcf, MMbtu, and Mw. And they find m for “milli”: ma, md, mg, ml, and ms.
Confused? Probably not, and the reason lies in the editing.
That’s because a style manual, unique to OGJ, guides all OGJ editors. It tries to anticipate all stylistic, grammatical, and mechanical questions in order to impose rigorous consistency on OGJ’s editorial pages.
OGJ editors spend hours each week pouring over manuscripts and proof pages, changing numerous style and symbol systems into something readers recognize as “OGJ Style.” Along with its distinctive type font and page layout, that consistency expresses OGJ’s identity.
With all due respect to AAPG and HGS, more consistent and rigorous editing—whatever the abbreviations—would probably go a long way toward mollifying Norman and those who have joined his campaign.
But from what source do these inconsistencies come?
Back to evolution
With apologies for the lecture, please hear me out:
Language that people use—and that moves from geographic place to place, from one cultural and economic environment to another—is going to change. If it changes enough, it’s going to become another language. This process has governed every language humans have used for at least 50,000 years, according to people who know a lot more about it than I do.
Latin—a language no one uses any more—died; it stopped changing. In its place sprang Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, and Portuguese. These in turn further evolved under linguistic and cultural influences: Think what French did for English, Arabic for Spanish.
But there’s a curious modern twist. Species and languages have always evolved toward variety. Under the current pervasive influence of worldwide communications, the various symbologies of the oil and gas industry are moving in the opposite direction: They are consolidating.
Norman’s effort is an element in that movement, as is the global influence of OGJ’s use of industry symbology.
