Chilli,
I think you will find that David understands what the correct phraseology is. He was simply trying to suggest a new one which if accepted and approved, may prove to be more helpful. That is what I think you missed from his post.
Yes, I do accept that standby often comes from an initial call. However I had had a number of calls that went along the lines of :
"ZZZ Control EI-xxx "
"xx go ahead"
"ZZZ Control xx [speil]"
"XX can you confirm.......(possibly that I am currently sqwaking 7000, or some other info)"
"afirm xx"
"Ok xx, standby"
These are where I would see it being more helpful to indicate to a pilot that a transit would be forthcoming, but that the controller needs a little more time.
And yes, I accept that the controller can't tell someone to keep on their heading/track/route without giving a clearance to enter their airspace. However I think a form of wording can be found to indicate that a transit will be granted shortly.
Yes, I sure we can all manage to read a map, and make a diversion, but it's one extra task, that may be completely unnecessary if you knew that your transit was about to be granted.
Surely you can see the point I'm trying to get at? Or is there a reason you wouldn't want to let the pilot know that they'd have their transit clearance shortly?
Of course in this, I am assuming that it's relatively common that controller know they will be able to oblige with a transit, but have a more urgent task to deal with. I could be wrong with that.
dp