One small step for (a) man

Christ on a bike. Everybody knows what he meant. Does it really matter?

Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon (BBC News)

A missing definite article does not a worthwhile research program make, IMO, even a famous one.

And it sounds so much cooler the way he said it anyway. What a waste of time, money and resources!

The 40th anniversary is approaching, looks like the PR machine is already in gear.

I just can't believe people wasted their time looking into something like that. I agree with leeza; the way he said it is cooler than what was planned.

Perfectly clear to me, he knew exactly what he meant. His small step was the embodiment of man taking its first step on land other than planet earth.
I imagine he new exactly what he was going to say (was probably instructed or told) and said it a thousand times in his head before doing so.

Should send this linguistic analysis on a one way mission to Mars - why waste a monkey.
I guess in time the BBC will become more and more like what the Sun newspaper is today.

[sup][pedant mode on][/sup]
'a' = indefinite article
'the' = definite article
[/off]

OFFS! All that time to find a definite answer about an indefinite article, born to be a bureaucrat.

300,000 km , billions spent and he missed a "a". What a shame... Was the mission declared a success?...where are the conspiracy theorists?

Right here: Did man really go to the moon?

I agree. We just watched a movie on the history of the space program at our local space & science center, and I prefer how he said it.

I just like the fact that he screwed it up anyway...

Well ... I wonder. Can we really be sure that it was indeed Armstrong who spoke those words? Did anyone see his lips move? Think about it: climbing out of the space capsule, onto a celestial body with a gravity very different from Earth's, and where practically no-one(*) has set foot before. You'd think he would be concentrating far too hard on not putting a foot wrong, to be glibly rattling off quotations for posterity. No ... those words sound more like a commentary by an observer - someone standing by on the lunar surface. Maybe someone whose native tongue is not English, who might occasionally omit an indefinite article, unaware of the significance. Oh well, I suppose we'll never know for sure.

(*) I say "practically" no-one, because I recently read this obituary of the man without whom the Apollo mission would not have been possible:
Sherpa Who Led Neil Armstrong To Moon Dead At 71

I had been him I would have said -

'the xWeeks mission to boldly set foot on what no man has set on before' and started humming the Star trek Theme...

we'd never find out I guess...