Andy Chaikin relayed to me his distress in seeing the recent news stories claiming that Neil Armstrong lied to the world about when he made up his famous “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” quote. As a result Chaikin wrote an op-ed in response, which is now up on Space.com. He would like everyone to send this far and wide, to counteract the ridiculous statements that have been made in past days. I could not agree more!
y’know. If Neil Armstrong had wanted his first words on the moon to be recorded as “…one small step for a man…” back around 1500, would anyone have objected? I don’t think so. At around 1600 AD? He’d have got his way. 1700? Ditto. 1800? 1900? No question. Because that was OBVIOUSLY what he wished to say.
But these days? We’re surrounded by petty-minded literalists who want to be pedantic for the sake of tearing down any evidence of human great achievement.
The really wierd thing is, if you read web posts and transciptions of addresses at academic conferences and statements by politicians and academic papers, you’ll find a serious grammatical glitch in every other sentence. Seriously sloppy speech — much much worse than Armstong’s glitch — has become ordinary. On the internet., we’ve learned to tolerate this. In outer space, we expect perfection.
Maybe that’s something good.