news media makes a stink over neil armstrong's words on moon

[tom d. friedman]

leave it to the news media to piss on neil armstrong's words as he stepped on the moon. a big controvery if he said "man" or "a man." they are making a snit over nothing,!!! but a letter!! the news media even had the nerve & audacity to imply he was a liar. why doesn't the news media do something more news worthy like articles on bigfoot, ufo close contacts, & whats the latest hot gossip on paris hilton, or what color is kim kardashian's butt thong going to be on january 6th?? that is about their speed!! they smeared an international hero & it sucks .

[k5083]

Um ... down boy. Chill.

This has been going on for years. No one has pissed on anything. Neither the greatness of the man or of the words is disputed. They are just trying to pin down what he said, so future generations can know accurately what may turn out to have been one of man's (or a man's) most significant utterances. We have all heard the recorded transmission many times. It's hard to tell. It is also neither scandalous nor outside the realm of possibility that NA revised the statement in explaining what he said after the fact -- c'mon, you've never cleaned up your language when telling someone what you said earlier? When it comes to great quotes, accuracy matters. Change one syllable in a lot of great Shakespeare quotes and you're left with nothing special.

If "hero" means somebody should be immune from being called on something all of us do, I'm glad I have no heroes.

August

[tom d. friedman]

hi august, i know the word thing has stirred controvery for many years, i just don't like the implication the media painted that he was a liar. bad choice of word on their part.

[cooper9411]

Why does it seem like that when ever someone passes, somebody has to come out of the woodwork to try and stir things up when the person they are talking about is no longer around to defend themselves? No, I am not reffering to anyone here on WIX but the media, the brother. Just another issue that has been beat into the ground over and over and over......

[CH2Tdriver]

Um ... down boy. Chill.

This has been going on for years. No one has pissed on anything. Neither the greatness of the man or of the words is disputed. They are just trying to pin down what he said, so future generations can know accurately what may turn out to have been one of man's (or a man's) most significant utterances. We have all heard the recorded transmission many times. It's hard to tell. It is also neither scandalous nor outside the realm of possibility that NA revised the statement in explaining what he said after the fact -- c'mon, you've never cleaned up your language when telling someone what you said earlier? When it comes to great quotes, accuracy matters. Change one syllable in a lot of great Shakespeare quotes and you're left with nothing special.

If "hero" means somebody should be immune from being called on something all of us do, I'm glad I have no heroes.

August

No, that's not what this story is about now. The latest sensationalized account is that all along Armstrong claimed that he thought those words up just prior to stepping on the lunar surface, and that the 'a man' was said. Now according to Armstrong's brother Dean, who states that Neil shared with him in writing months before the lunar landing the famous words he would say, and that they did not include the 'a'. In other words contradicting what Neil has stated all along.

The media spin on this of course is a headline stating Armstrong lied and all this was a ploy to cover his flub for the history books. So yes IMHO this does seem to take an unneccassary slam at Neil's character.

[Noha307]

I am quite confused as to what is wrong with questioning of Neil's phrasing. All I saw was a good-natured inquiry into what he actually said - no malice intended. That being said, I don't claim to have read extensively on the issue and haven't looked into it recently, so I may have missed something. Can anyone provide some links to some stories that show negative implications or language and not just a simple questioning of what he said?

Also, it's important to remember to clearly differentiate between the two issues here: the debate (Did he use the word "a"?) and the debate about the debate (Should we be looking into this, and if so, are we going about it in the correct manner?).

Snopes on the Issue: One Small Misstep