re: Univ of Florida professor lowers grade for use of the non gender neutral word “man”

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So Neil Amrstrong should be shamed for daring to tell the world as he stepped on the Moon, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

To satisfy the uber liberal elite he should have said, "one small step for humans, one giant leap for humankind."

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While I understand and agree with your comments, I bristle whenever I see Armstrong's quote without the a before man. He insisted that he included it. Debate rages to this day about whether he actually said, "One small step for a man...," with the a being inaudible because of recording technology of the day. Some experts say he did while others insist that he didn't. Since he is history's greatest explorer and one of the nicest men who ever lived, I think we should honor him by including that a. It was very important to him.

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Words said when Armstrong first stepped onto the moon (20 July 1969). In the actual sound recordings he apparently fails to say "a" before "man" and says: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." This was generally considered by many to simply be an error of omission on his part. Armstrong long insisted he did say "a man" but that it was inaudible. Prior to new evidence supporting his claim, he stated a preference for the "a" to appear in parentheses when the quote is written. In September 2006 evidence based on new analysis of the recordings conducted by Peter Shann Ford, a computer programmer based in Sydney, Australia, whose company Control Bionics helps physically handicapped people to use their own nerve impulses to communicate through computers, indicated that Armstrong had said the missing "a." This information was presented to Armstrong and NASA on 28 September 2006 and reported in the Houston Chronicle (30 September 2006). The debate continues on the matter, as "Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon" at BBC News (3 June 2009) reports that more recent analysis by linguist John Olsson and author Chris Riley with higher quality recordings indicates that he did not say "a".

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