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...one giant leap for Mankind.
Tonight in my Dad's hospital room the TV was on, captioned, because he's hard of hearing, and there was a show about the early space program. Sure enough, when the caption writer had to type that famous quote the "a" was left out, as seems to be more the case. This misquote has always been one of my pet peeves, because it was obvious to this 15 year old's ears (in '69) that Neil Armstrong said "One small step for a man..." Neil Armstrong himself has always emphatically asserted that he intended the "a" to be there, and that he doesn't know why it's been omitted more frequently than not. The quote itself makes no sense *without the "a" because it means "One small step for a(n) individual man, one giant leap for Mankind." Omitting the "a" (One small step for man) renders Man and Mankind synonymous thus obfuscating all coherency. But, to be fair, and upon hearing that old audio once agian recently, that pesky "a" short vowel with the schwa, pronounced "uh", loses itself in the context of that phrase. No matter how you say it, slowly, quickly, or even think it quietly to yourself, that short "a" melts away to somewhere. Is there a linguistic term for this phenomenon (tsuwm, or any of our other Word Maestros?). Now, if you pronounce it with the long "a", (ay) it has to be there. Comments?
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It's omitted more often than not because very few (I would have said nobody, but the lovely AnnaS says otherwise) heard it. I would submit that, expecting it, the normal ear would mishear its being there rather than mishear its absence. Playing with it on my tongue, I can hear it go missing through understress, but I can also hear it go missing through awe and self-consciousness. Those who did not hear it at the time were pretty consistent in their commenting on its absence, so either it wasn't spoken or it was lost in transmission noise. Perhaps there is a sound file available somewhere.
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I noticed the same phenomenon last night, sort of, which shows how the language gets a little bent in the speaking of it. It may be regional, but I'll bet it's pretty widespread tongue laziness. This example doesn't change the meaning, but certainly alters the production of sound (like your 'disappearing' "a" sound).
I was visiting my sister last night when my nephew returned from basketball practice at dinnertime. The brief snippet of conversation on point was:
Sis: Did you eat yet? = Didja eat yet? = Djeetyet?
Nephew: No, did you? = No, didjoo? = No, Djoo?
I'm sure some linguists would point out that all of the phonemes which are crucial to the conveyance of meaning are present in these utterances, but certainly enough of them had been dropped or altered so that it caught my ear.
Interestingly, I also note that the final "t" in my sister's question was altered from a aspirated fricative (I hope that's right) to a full glottal stop (ditto).
Thanks for pointing out the Armstrong thing; I'll keep listening for other examples, especially where meaning is altered by delivery. Fascinating.
Ron.
Ron.
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all of the phonemes which are crucial to the conveyance of meaning ..This clearly depends on the context in which the utterance is embedded, and the corresponding expectations. In the case you mention (dinnertime, hungry youngster arriving), a single grunt on a mounting note would probably have been sufficient  .
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You know, Herr Sieber, for someone for whom English is a second language, you put me to shame. (that's a compliment!)
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Mmm, I think it's his third...at least.
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Notice, Jackie, I said "a" second language. We can all have several second languages, as I figure it. OK, y'all fellow polyglots, form groups and discuss! 
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Snopes weighs in on the matter: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/onesmall.htmI couldn't get the sound file link to work.
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Not sure if I can be considered polyglot, but for me there's a clear heirarchy:
1. English (I feel fully fluent and literate in it - though friends, during parties, claim otherwise)
2. Hindi (capable of halting conversation, reading, watching movies etc and can write but would rather not!)
3. Marathi (even more halting than Hindi, but can read and write, just about.)
4. Malayalam (illiterate, but can understand slow conversations and throw a few words into the conversation.)
5. Gujarati (can almost read - only because of similarity of script to Devanagari, but knowledge of the language is so small as to be almost non-existent.
6. Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi, Tamil, French (scattered words only. Can 'read' French, but only because it uses the Roman script)
So my second language is clearly Hindi. My 'mother tongue', in the old sense of the word, is Malayalam.
And does any of this make sense?
cheer
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Makes all kinds of sense to me, shanks. "Second language" is an expression that many people I know have the two different definitions for. I have only one second language, Portuguese, so I'm not as, er, engaged in the idea as someone like you who has several what I would call second languages. Now here's another question: "shanks has many ______ languages"? Acquired foreign?
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In shanks's case the only ones that could reasonably qualify as foreign are his main language and the one he calls his mother tongue. Or either that or I've got his provenance all wangary in my mind, one.
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I couldn't get the sound file link to work. If you scroll down and click on Apollo 11 transcript, you can read about it. Go about a third of the way down the page, to 109:24:48.
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I think the fact that the "a" is sandwiched between the specific consonant sounds of the final "r" and beginning "m" causes it to dissolve. If one or both of the consonants were different the "a" wouldn't be so apt to disappear. For instance, "One small step at a man." Following the "t" of "at" the "a" pretty much has to be there, no matter how you try to make it go away. Try it and see.
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If he had been speaking casually, the schwa could well have merged with the continuant on either side of it. But he was speaking quite slowly, as befit the occasion, as I recall. I heard the recording several years ago, and having by then heard about this, I confirmed the "a" was unmistakably missing: I didn't hear it as doubtful.
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Hi
Malayalam is from Kerala, which is part of India, so it doesn't really qualify as foreign.
French (though I know next to nothing of it), does serve as a 'foreign' language.
As for me, with more than one tongue trailing behind my English, I'm likely to call them auxilliary (or perhaps ancillary) languages. What do you think?
cheer
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Well found. After "that's" there are four evenly-spaced and distinctly-stressed syllables: "one, small, step, man", and "for" less prominent but equally distinct. No way there's anything else in there. No slurring, no swallowing. The syllabic peaks just don't allow for any "a", however unstressed.
Beyond that... long, long pause, and interference, and uncertainty. Maybe he realized he'd screwed it up, maybe he didn't notice. Very long hesitation: hard to say why. The latter parts have crackle. But there's no crackle in the first half.
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check Fald's Snopes link. Armstrong missed the word, and knows it. it was scripted and he got a bit excited(wonder why?)... 
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We were told that that second and foreign languages are languages one learnt after puberty: a second language is a language used in the country where one learnt it and uses it, and a foreign language is a language not so used.
So for me, Indonesian is a second language because I live in Indonesia, and French is a foreign language because it's not spoken here.
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The pesky "a": Is there a linguistic term for this phenomenon?
Perhaps the term you are looking for [to explain the missing "a"] is "poetic licence".
Without the "a", there are 3 beats in the 1st part of the quote, "One small step for a'man", to match the 3 beats in the last part ["one giant leap for mankind"].
The "a" is the only word sound which is expendable.
In this case, tempo trumps linguistic precision.
We all know what the sentence means even if, as you point out, it doesn't exactly say what we know it means.
Everyone who witnessed the event knew this "first small step" was a milestone of history. We needed the words celebrating the event to sound like they had been spoken for all the ages.
Only poetry can accomplish this.
One can write poetry without rhyme, but not without rhythm.
If there had been 4 beats in the 2nd part of the sentence, the "a" would have been stressed, not muted.
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I heard the Armstrong couplet on the radio last night, and I agree with those above who insist that there was no "a". Until this discussion started up I had no idea that an "a" was supposed to have been included. It makes perfect sense the way Armstrong said it.
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At the time it was happening, I was watching it in Paris in the lobby of our hotel. I heard it in French and didn't understand a word. Thanks for your memories, folks.
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Is there a linguistic term for this phenomenon?
It just popped up in unrelated reading. The term is "elision". [I have a vague recollection of it now from grammar school days. Never thought I would have a use for it.]
American Heritage Dictionary: elision
Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse.
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A "History of Filght" supplement in our hometown newspaper today, in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight, finished with the moon landing, and here's the way the quote appeared, much to my amazement afetr all this discussion:
>Armstrong was first to set foot on the surface, telling millions on Earth who saw and heard him that it was "one small step for (a) man -- one giant leap for mankind."<
I think that's a historically fair way of including the accuracy of what was actually said (or what sounded to be said), what was intended to be said, and what *some folks (ahem) heard (or thought they head) said.
I can live with the parentheticized "a".
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In reply to:
I think that's a historically fair way of including the accuracy of what was actually said (or what sounded to be said), what was intended to be said, and what *some folks (ahem) heard (or thought they head) said.
I can live with the parentheticized "a".
Is the above just a spectacularly verbose way of saying that you don't buy Armstrong's own admission that there was no a?
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that there was no a?I think you forgot the smiley, max... did I read a different article? Armstrong admits there was supposed to be an (a), but he left it off in the excitement. I like the parentheses...
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No, I didn't forget the smiley, I was trying an experiment. I thought of adding it, and then decided not to, hoping that long association would make its implied presence obvious. It looks like hope sprung a leak.
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ah, my apologies for stirring your experiment... I hope all is not undone.
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stirring your experiment... I hope all is not undone. Snort! Eta, you are the sweetest thing!
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Is the above just a spectacularly verbose way of saying that you don't buy Armstrong's own admission that there was no a? No, Max, just my *disconvuvulated version saying that I think the quote printed in that way covers, for history, the a-less audio (for whatever reason) and the fact that Armstrong stated he did the "a", that he intended it to be there. Lot's of disconvuvulation in my ken these days...guess that was the bestus I could doest (or somethin' like that). 
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And I answered Max directly from my mailbox before reading the ensuing banter, which is why my previous post may fall like a dull thud.
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did I read a different article? Armstrong admits there was supposed to be an (a), but he left it off in the excitement.
Perhaps we are overlooking the obvious here.
Who can argue with W'ON that the addition of the word "a" adds clarity and precision to the message, particularly when we know that that's what the author intended?
But the quotation, with "a" included, produces an irksome extra beat, which upsets the cadence, and the poetry, of the complete sentence.
Poets typically resolve this difficulty by taking the stress off the "a" [elision]. In writing, this is rendered as "a'step" rather than "(a) step".
It is perfectly understandable that Armstrong, "in the excitement", elided, or muted the word "a" altogether, in unconscious regard for the natural rhythm of the sentence.
Even if Armstrong had not elided or muted the word "a", over time the word "a" would have disappeared from our collective memory.
Winston Churchill wrote "blood, toil, tears and sweat", but we remember only "blood, sweat and tears".
Shakespeare wrote "to gild refined gold and paint the lily", but we remember only "to gild the lily".
We demand that the sayings we esteem for all the ages obey the laws of rhythm and economy/vividness of imagery.
We are all poets at heart.
What was said may be less important than the way we want to remember what was said.
On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. When he met his Cabinet on May 13 he told them that "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
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Even if Armstrong had not elided or muted the word "a", over time the word "a" would have disappeared from our collective memory.not for those of us that like 3/4 time...
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not for those of us that like 3/4 time...The collective memory seldom assimilates off-beat tastes. More's the pity.
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The collective memory seldom assimilates off-beat tastes.Then what are we all here, chopped mantles? ************** BTW and for the record ; I have to disagree with that assertion. Given the portent nature of that event, a distinguished "a" would remain (I believe) just so throughout history.
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Given the portent nature of that event, a distinguished "a" would remain (I believe) just so throughout history.
Perhaps.
But, speaking for myself, when I recall this momentous odyssey into outer space, I want to hear "the music of the spheres", not the dissonance of an amateur poet [taking nothing away from his pre-eminence as an astronaut, of course].
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Then you'll *need something like this...Apollo1
Yes, that's it, exactly, Musick. Just heard it. Thank you. [Your pseudonym is well deserved.]
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