Saturday, September 30, 2006

One Giant Leap for Grammar Sticklers

Having lived on the Greek island of Mykonos for several years, and adopting phrases like- “I go make shopping now” and “I no want more ouzo”- I’m the first to admit that grammar is no longer my strong point.

But after years of being chided by historians and critics (I mean, isn’t enough that he walked on the moon people?), for not uttering the more dramatic and grammatically correct phrase “One small step for a man. . .” (um, he left out the “a” which according to those in the know, made one of history’s most famous quotes no more than a bunch of redundant gibberish, ultimately translating to “One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind"), Neil Armstrong has finally been redeemed.

Thanks to some high-tech, sound-editing software, computer programmer Peter Shann Ford found evidence of the missing “a” that was not only spoken, but transmitted to NASA, and so was able to prove that Armstrong had said it right (or would that be correctly?) all along.

Now if we could just clear up that whole “I’m a jelly donut” JFK debacle!

1 comment:

Trish Ryan said...

Whew - what a relief to have THAT important matter cleared up! Is this really what computer programmers are spending their time on these days???