The purpose of this paper is to examine the fundamental definitions, theory, and practice of statistical process monitoring (SPM) that we narrowly define as control charting. The primary goal of SPM is to reduce variation. We consider issues such as the definition of common and special causes, the use of redundant terminology, contradictions in definitions proposed by various major authors, and the definition of control. We demonstrate with numerous quotations from various authors that over the years the fundamental ideas and theory behind control charting have become convoluted and confused. Due to this confusion, teaching, learning, understanding, and using control charting effectively is not straightforward. These issues are important, because an understanding of control charting is necessary for industry practitioners as it is often tied to quality standards. As a first step to remedy these issues, we provide a minimal set of terms needed to describe SPM. To achieve substantial variation reduction, we also recommend spending much more effort in what we call the improvement phase (Phase I) before moving to the ongoing monitoring phase (Phase II).