Supposedly a true story.
One morning, the merger between Air France and KLM was announced. At Schiphol airport, ATC wanted a KLM aircraft to follow a certain Air France aircraft to the runway, so they told the KLM "...follow the company 737....". That greatly confused the KLM crew who apparently had not gotten the news yet.
On a more personal note, I was a solo student and told to taxi to the runway "...behind the Cardinal". Not knowing my aircraft, I told ATC "...all I see is a Cessna". Miffed reply from the other aircraft "...a Cardinal is a Cessna...".
As others have said, if you have a reasonable grasp of the size and shape of the various aircraft types, you'll be OK.