I am the first to admit I hate a lot of the rubbish that is used on the radios eg. "this time", "call you on the ground" etc. I do however say G'day to just about every aircraft that I handoff to the next sector, so I can't complain too much.
My plead to the piloting community and to ATC's is that if you can bring yourself to change just
one thing you say over the air, please,
please, stop saying "Nine" and use the term "niner". Not because it annoys me, but for safety sake. I'm not so anal that I expect everyone to use fower and tree or even fife, but "nine" just sounds too close to "5".
A090 is a common level used in CTA as "paperstop" levels between sectors. Controllers have been stood down, myself included awhile back, for assigning A090 and hearing "Nine" as a response only to later find out the pilot had possibly read back "Five" (15 min of intensive listening to the tapes resulted in "sounded like 9, could have been 5"). I have since had reason to ask pilots up to 3 times "confirm assigned niner thousand" and received"affirm, nine thousand". After the third time you're banging your head and assuring yourself that you did in fact hear "nine".
It just shouldn't have to happen.
On a side note, I am sure that the extra 120ft on the altimeter would be preferred when conducting approach to the minima in IMC as well.
Cheers,
R_S.