Neil Armstrong’s famous quote “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” uttered by the American astronaut after becoming the first person to land on the Moon in 1969 had a small error, according to a new study.
A team of researchers from Michigan State University and Ohio State University has taken a second listen to Armstrong’s famous quote and may have provided evidence that he did indeed say the word “a” as part of that famous saying.
When he took his first step on the moon, Armstrong claimed he said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” However, many listeners think he left out the “a”.
As the American astronaut himself pointed out many times, the sentence is meaningful only if he says, “That’s one small step for a man.”
Armstrong claimed that is what he said on July 20, 1969 as he lowered his foot from the lunar module to the surface of the Moon — otherwise, there is no distinction between a single individual and all of humanity.
But now the researchers have taken a novel approach to deciphering Armstrong’s quote by studying how speakers from his native central Ohio pronounce “for” and “for a” and the results suggest that it is entirely possible that Armstrong said what he claimed, though evidence indicates that people are statistically more likely to hear “for man”. Armstrong was raised in central Ohio, where there is typically a lot of blending between words such as “for” and “a”, according to a Michigan State University (MSU).