Neil Armstrong Vindicated

An Australian sound engineer has used technology to
decipher the ' a ' in Armstrongs quote. It was actually there but was
spoken about 10 times too fast to be audible on the tape the we all heard.
Neil has insisted
for decades that he spoke the word.

Mick wrote:
An Australian sound engineer has used technology to
decipher the ' a ' in Armstrongs quote. It was actually there but was
spoken about 10 times too fast to be audible on the tape the we all heard.
Neil has insisted for decades that he spoke the word.

It was actually stolen from Kennedy's "ein."

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
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I (Brian Tung) wrote:
It was actually stolen from Kennedy's "ein."

Of course, I'm being unfair to Kennedy. He said what he meant to say--
the "ein" isn't wrong--but it is often thought to be.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
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"CeeBee" ceebee@novalidmail wrote in message
2.164...
"micheel" wrote in sci.astro.amateur:

An Australian sound engineer has used technology to
decipher the ' a ' in Armstrongs quote. It was actually there but was
spoken about 10 times too fast to be audible on the tape the we all
heard.
Neil has insisted
for decades that he spoke the word.

Nice.

(But even if no one had ever deciphered it, we all would haven known for
sure what he really meant nevertheless.)

Not so. It is written as recorded. The original recording was scrutinized
'till
the cows came home but it was always the same result. The media had
no choice but to print the quote as heard even though grammatically
it made as much sense as chinese.

"Brian Tung" wrote in message
...
I (Brian Tung) wrote:
It was actually stolen from Kennedy's "ein."

Of course, I'm being unfair to Kennedy. He said what he meant to say--
the "ein" isn't wrong--but it is often thought to be.
I thought it was the "Berliner" that was thought to
be wrong -- that is, a pastry.

--
Rick Evans
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lat +42° 11' 07"
Lon -71° 04' 35"
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chempensoftware.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://mysite.verizon.net/hiltonevan...troimaging.htm

I (Brian Tung) wrote:
It was actually stolen from Kennedy's "ein."

Of course, I'm being unfair to Kennedy. He said what he meant to say--
the "ein" isn't wrong--but it is often thought to be.
I thought it was the "Berliner" that was thought to
be wrong -- that is, a pastry.

--
Rick Evans


An urban legend? See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin...urban_le gend

Dennis

"Brian Tung" wrote
Of course, I'm being unfair to Kennedy. He said what he meant to say--
the "ein" isn't wrong--but it is often thought to be.

"Rick Evans" wrote:
I thought it was the "Berliner" that was thought to
be wrong -- that is, a pastry.

My understanding was that the use of "ein" as describing personal
association leads to an ambiguity. In German, one typically says "I am
Berliner". The confusion arises from English where we say "I am a
Berliner", and the fact that there is a jelly donut of the same name.
So although it's grammatically correct in German to add the "ein", its
uncommon use when referring to citizenship leads one to snicker about
claiming to be a pastry instead.

=============
- Dale Gombert (SkySea at aol.com)
122.38W, 47.58N, W. Seattle, WA
http://flavorj.com/~skysea

Rick Evans wrote:
I thought it was the "Berliner" that was thought to
be wrong -- that is, a pastry.

Well, yes and no. You might think it's like saying "I am a danish,"
but I doubt that people in Denmark call our danish a danish (that is, if
they call it anything at all). Similarly, people in Berlin in the 1960s
did eat a kind of pastry, and it was called a Berliner in some parts of
Germany--but not in Berlin itself. Kennedy's phrasing was correct,
though it would also not have been wrong to say it without the "ein,"
either.

Now, his *pronunciation*--that was a different matter altogether. It
seems he spoke German with (understandably) a rather pronounced New
England accent. So the middle syllable of Berliner came out rather a
bit more palatalized than was appropriate. At any rate he did thank his
translator in the next sentence, and there really was no confusion. The
Berliners themselves did not think it particularly funny, although
apparently there were at least some West Germans who did.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

"Dennis Woos" wrote in message
...
I (Brian Tung) wrote:
It was actually stolen from Kennedy's "ein."

Of course, I'm being unfair to Kennedy. He said what he meant to say--
the "ein" isn't wrong--but it is often thought to be.
I thought it was the "Berliner" that was thought to
be wrong -- that is, a pastry.

--
Rick Evans


An urban legend?

Nein. See the paragraph:

" The name "Berliner" is based on etymologic travel: other parts of Germany
picked up the pastry under the name of Berliner Pfannkuchen (= pancake from
Berlin), which in turn has been shortened to Berliner. That name has
travelled further abroad and is now known in some English-speaking regions.
In the 1960s however the term "Berliner"
for the pastry sounded strange to people in Berlin. "

That's why I used the word pastry and NOT "jelly donut" in my comment.


--
Rick Evans
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lat +42° 11' 07"
Lon -71° 04' 35"
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chempensoftware.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://mysite.verizon.net/hiltonevan...troimaging.htm

micheel wrote:
"CeeBee" ceebee@novalidmail wrote in message
2.164...
"micheel" wrote in sci.astro.amateur:

An Australian sound engineer has used technology to
decipher the ' a ' in Armstrongs quote. It was actually there but was
spoken about 10 times too fast to be audible on the tape the we all
heard.
Neil has insisted
for decades that he spoke the word.

Nice.

(But even if no one had ever deciphered it, we all would haven known for
sure what he really meant nevertheless.)

Not so. It is written as recorded. The original recording was scrutinized
'till
the cows came home but it was always the same result. The media had
no choice but to print the quote as heard even though grammatically
it made as much sense as chinese.

If one were to actually try to *say* "One small step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind", one might notice that the "a" before man will
likely be pronounced "uh", and is likely to be unvoiced.

If you're talking to someone face to face, it's no big deal. They can
see your lips move, and so they'll "hear" the "a" even though possibly
no sound actually issued forth from your mouth for it.

So I don't think one should *need* to scrutinize the original recording
to print the quote as it was obviously intended. We can take
Armstrong's word for it that he moved his tongue and his lips at the
time, knowing that sound doesn't always come out for every word people
attempt to speak - and an "a" following an "r" sound happens to be one
of the worst cases.

John Savard