I have two pet stories when discussing RT with students (and pilots).
On numerous occassions I hear an aircraft, that has previously reported being at 4,000 feet, saying "Descending Two Thousand Five Hundred Feet".
I would not think it unreasonable for a native English speaker to assume that this aircraft was going to level off at an altitude of two thousand five hundred feet - a decsent of, in this scenario, 1,500 feet.
But what they actually said was "Descending Two Thousand Five Hundred Feet". So I would be equally unsurprised if somebody understood that this aircraft was descending 2,500 and would level off at an altitude of 1,500'.
The other, with tragic loss of an airframe and four crew, was the 747 approaching Kuala Lumpur - which was instructed by ATC "Descend Two Four Zero Zero Feet" (in the days when we used to digitise numbers). The crew read back "Descend to four zero zero". Their 747 hit the ground at 600amsl (thinking they still had 200 feet to go), 12 miles from the beacon they were tracking inbound towards - the MSA was 2,400 feet amsl. Apart from the RT fault, who operates a 747 at 400 amsl 12 miles from an IAF?
Heard a guy near Orlando, spending absolutely ages on a noisy RT frequency with Miami, saying over and over again that his destination was "QTS - you know, Queen Tommy Sam".