Did Neil Armstrong's Ohio Accent Obscure The 'A' In His Famous Quote?
Neil Armstrong During Apollo 11 NASA/via Wikimedia Researchers say the Midwestern astronaut might really have said "one small step for a man." Even after all these years, there's some debate on what, exactly, Neil Armstrong said when he landed on the moon. Armstrong had said on the record that the quote was the grammatically correct, "One small step for A man, one giant leap for man kind." But back on Earth, most people thought the "a" was omitted. Maybe Armstrong flubbed the quote, or it didn't come through clearly on Earth. Or maybe, as a team of speech scientists is now suggesting, Armstrong's accent was the problem. The researchers, from Ohio State University and Michigan State University, say the "a" could've been short and blended in to the earlier part of the quote: something like, "One small step 'frrr(uh)' man." That, the team says, would be consistent with the accent Armstrong...