'Dog X-ray'?

Has amateur radio become so rubbish that it is now little better than the 'radio-ese' that beset CB?

I think it has.  Every day, I listen to people using the term 'Dog X-Ray'.  It seems to be uttered by the usual cohort of over-machoistic DX hunters, often simultaneously causing 'splatter' 15kHz either side of their QRG.

There are occasions when departure from the standard phonetic alphabet is warranted.  The letter 'M', for example, is very often misheard as '5', leading to some rather amusing and, indeed, overwhelming situations when a UK station is believed, thanks to the cluster, of being a station in Western Samoa!  So, the phonetic 'Mexico', with two hard letters, is often much better than 'Mike'.

So, I guess it's a case of cutting-out the needless, CB-like radioese, and bringing in that which makes a genuine improvement to intelligibility.