Worth keeping in mind that recordings of ATC are taken from people running ground stations, which may not have perfect line-of-sight to the transmitter at the airport, so recordings can be lower quality and more garbled than what the pilots are actually hearing.
Totally true, although the examples I was contemplating are like in a sibling comment to yours, where even the pilots are confused. I think a lot of pilots would agree that there’s room for improvement in diction with ATC. And of course not for the sake of aesthetics or something but for safety.
