One of the things that makes understanding some the radio chatter is anticipation and common phrases.

The pilot or controller are used to a certain flow of the message along with standard phraseology.

ATC: American 1062 Chicago, fly heading 220, climb and maintain one zero thousand.
PILOT: American 1062, 220, maintain ten.

ATC: Air France 862, traffic eleven o'clock, five miles, British 747, follow him, intercept RW 22R LOC, descend to five.
PILOT: Air France 862, roger, follow 747, intercept 22R LOC, leaving 7 for 5.

These are fairly standard interactions between ATC & Pilot. As long as the communications stays in the area of common phrases the information seems to work. It's when either side leaves the area of standard and anticipated communications that the understanding begins to fall apart. One of the videos of the landing on the Hudson by Captain Sully has an actual recording of the communications between the USAir flight and LGA departure. As long as the communications stays in the area of what is anticipated it works just fine. As soon as Sully starts to talk about hitting birds and engine failures you can hear the breakdown of the understood message. This is an area as an instructor that we spent a lot of time with crews to obtain this common and precise communication so that the message sent is the message received.

Here is and example of message SENT but information not received.

In the cockpit the pilot monitors several channels of communication. For instance, at the gate when getting ready to push and start the pilots would have to be listening to at least three different channels. ATC, ground & cabin inter-phone.

Here is the set-up. ATC calls with a push back clearance. At the same time the cabin announcement is being made about all passengers seated etc. Since the ATC call is something the pilot has to listen to and really understand, some times the pilot will either turn down or turn off the cabin announcement as the ATC clearance is given. Then the pilot has to communicate with the ground push back crew and relay the ATC instructions for the push back. While this is going on a fire starts in the cabin and the F/A dings the pilot and says "we have a fire should we evacuate?" The pilot who did not hear the message since he either turned down the volume or turned off the cabin inter-phone during the push back clearance only heard the ding of the cabin call. The pilot picks up the inter-phone handset pushes the PTT button and says... "Go Ahead."

So you think the message SENT was the message RECEIVED?

This actually happened just as I described and the F/A's opened all the doors and initiated an evacuation while the plane was being pushed back. People were injured since the plane was moving and damage to the plane was sustained. Only when the push crew saw the slides being deployed was the cockpit crew informed and the plane stopped. The fire was nothing more than heavy condensation from the air conditioner because of very high humidity.

This is why it is so important to communicate clearly. This is why ATC demands a read back of ALL hold short instructions. They need to have that feed-back loop of communications.

We all must eschew obfuscation!  :o