One Small Step for Neil Armstrong, One Giant Leap Against the Infallible Snopes
Once again, the Language Police, this time with backing from Snopes, has made a false arrest. We now know that, contrary to popular myth, Neil Armstrong did not flub his famous line on the moon, and did in fact say exactly what he was supposed to say, to wit:
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Oops.
UPDATE: Tearfree defends the indefensible, arguing in effect that Armstrong shouldn’t have described himself as a man, but as “the human creature regarded abstractly and personified as an individual.” O-kay.
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:04 am
Hot dog. That’s awesome. That darn thing has bugged me since I was old enough to know about it. Editor in me, I guess. :)
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:11 pm
OT…Did you change the color scheme for xrlq.com?
Today it is nearly impossible to read with Mozilla 1.7.13, black text on dark grey.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Not deliberately. It still looks the same using IE. Not sure what happened with Firefox, but will look into it when I get a chance.
October 2nd, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Actually, in my IE, the colors are fine but the sidebar is down at the bottom. First guess is it’s something in this post that’s doing the badness–other individual posts are fine in Firefox.
October 5th, 2006 at 9:57 am
As I explain over at my blog, there is nothing wrong with “one small step for man…” What’s more the revised version sounds awful, no rythym, no style.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:27 am
There’s plenty wrong with “one small step for man.” The whole point of the line – and the reason Armstrong thought he’d flubbed it rather than saying “oh no, I meant to say that” – was that it was one small step for him personally, not one small step for any definition of “man” that doesn’t take the definite article.
Rhythm, schmythm. Taking liberties with the grammar is fine when writing poetry, but when it comes to prose I’ll take sense over nonsense any day of the week.
October 5th, 2006 at 11:24 am
It aen’t wrong. Trust me. The backlash is about to begin.
October 5th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Sure it’s wrong. The definition you provide is not only synonymous with mankind, it even lists “mankind” as part of the definition. You do understand what the words “abstract” and “generic” mean, don’t you?
The issue is simple. Neil Armstrong is a man. He is not “man” – except maybe in the irrelevant sense that he is not “or machine.”
October 5th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
I Dont think we should make it at issue. He may have thought otherwise, for the whole mankind i mean. But it’s better to ask him first, then judge his words.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:23 am
what one little step for man,is a giant leap for a mankind means?