Just a note on the terseness of conversations -- as a pilot it was drilled into me to be as short and concise as possible, as there are (especially in, say, New York or Los Angeles) a lot of planes flying around and a finite number of seconds in which Air Traffic Controller needs to talk to them. Whilst it doesn't seem like much to tack on a few extra words, it adds up. All the controllers will be quite chatty if it's dead slow, but in crowded areas it's not that common other than at the 3:00am when I'd be out flying the SAN-BUR route.
Steve