As someone who lives in the mecca of the oil and gas industry and is thus around a lot of engineers--chemical engineers, civil engineers, mechanical engineers,

As someone who lives in the mecca of the oil and gas industry and is thus around a lot of engineers--chemical engineers, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and more--I can tell you that trying to argue too passionately about what constitutes an "engineer" is futile at this point. Engineers do everything from physically working on an oil rig to somewhat abstract economic analysis at a desk all day. The only legitimate argument I can find regarding the use of the word "engineer" is that there are actual engineering licenses that can be obtained. But if we said that you had to have such a license to be called an engineer, that would screw up the naming conventions in a ton of industries.