If you´re new to this industry you´ll notice that it has a vocabulary all of its´ own, filled with `top heads´ and `split spoons´ and countless other things that you may never have heard of.
Eventually, through perserverence and by keeping your eyes and ears open, you will pick up enough to grasp what goes on. To this end, we´re pleased to offer you this glossary of some of the more frequently heard terms.
| Amortization | Period of time required to pay off equipment investment. Often measured in lifetimes. | 
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| Aquitard | Someone who knows nothing about groundwater. | 
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| Recharge | Practice of sending a new invoice to customers who insist they never got the first two. | 
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| Bail | Money required when drawdown is excessive. | 
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| Barrels | Amount of money drillers used to make in the good old days. | 
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| Drawdown | Effect of a recession on a companys´ bank account. | 
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| Drill Bit | Any unidentifiable part remaining after a rig has been serviced. | 
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| Drive Shoe | The one on the right foot. See also Clutch shoe. | 
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| Fault | A geologic condition resulting in a non-producing well. Invariably caused by a competitor. | 
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| Filter Cake | Often found in a lunchbox that has been left open near the rig. | 
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| Fishing | A non-drilling activity that doesn´t make any money. | 
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| Grout | A warning. Often issued loudly to novice drillers, as in "Grout of the way you stupid *!@#!". | 
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| Hardness | The amount of difficulty finding water at the depth promised, as in "The water is too hard to find here". | 
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| Leachate | An employee (often a distant relative) who´s too expensive to keep but not worth the trouble of firing. | 
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| Oberservation Well | Anything done by ones´ competition. | 
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| Overburden | The act of giving a leachate a job . . . any job. | 
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| Ph | The sound that a hydraulic hose makes just before it blows. | 
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| Reamer | The person responsible for the leachate. Frequently issues grouts. | |
| Slurry | Sound of a drillers´ voice after the first night of a convention. Sometimes after the first morning. | 
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| Vadose Zone | The point when all the hydrogeologists sound the same. When you don´t know your karst from a hole in the ground. | 
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| Well Point | When the driller shows the homeowner where the well will be drilled. | 
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| Well Screen | When the driller tries to avoid telling the homeowner that the well will have to be at least 500 ft. deep. | 
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Well Yield | When the homeowner realizes that the alternative is drinking prune juice and washing in the river. | 
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