In article <01bd09f5$4fa9d690$43965ccf@kitana>, Cortlandt Wilson
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>| I once heard that Neil actually DID say "for A man" but that the "A"
>somehow got
>| dropped by the radio transmission.
>
>I listened to a recording recently; I don't think there was a radio 'drop
>out'.    Even if there was a transmission glitch, what was received on
>earth was not what was reported.
>
>I asked the question - how many noticed that Armstrong dropped the article
>"a"?     It could be that Chronkite and others "heard" the "a man" and,
                           ^Cronkite, surely?
                            Mind you I'm only a Limey....
>like a baseball umpire,  "reported it the way he heard it"!
>
AIUI, there was a script, and Neil was to say 'a man'. When he didn't
quite manage it (he had a few things on his mind at the time, I imagine)
history was dynamically rewritten to be as it should have been, instead
of as it was.

Much as everybody thinks that Bogart said 'Play it again, Sam' in
Casablanca. He didn't, but he should have. The tiniest imperfection in
the most perfect film of all time? Maybe, in future digital versions, he
*will* say it.....

What *still* isn't recorded, BTW, is what Sir Edmund Hillary said at the
exact moment he bent down to plant the flag on Everest. When he happened
to look round, and saw the Sherpa Tensing....
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