poetry can be analyzed quite precisely to determine the answer to the OP question.
assuming, for the sake of argument, that what Armstrong said is a poem, here are some tools:
1. is it conversational English? If not, how would you tell the poem’s story to a third party? All poetry is still based on words that carry literal meaning. Given the meanings of "man" and "mankind," what is the literal meaning of the words Armstrong actually uttered?
2. What was Armstrong's purpose in saying these words? Was the slipup reflective of some other thought from the official purpose for the first words spoken on the surface of the moon by a human being?
3. check for prosody, the technical aspects of poetry: does it scan? does it even have meter? Can you say these two lines constitute a stanza? Or is this just a confusion of point of view between 1st person and 3rd person limited?
seems like it should be spondaic tetrameter, but is it?
example:
Break, break, break
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
My fav, of course, is this example of trochaic monometer, a poem entitled "Fleas":
Adam
Had'em.
The word “Man” means, literally:
• an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman);
• serviceman: someone who serves in the armed forces; a member of a military force;
• the generic use of the word to refer to any human being, but also all of the living human inhabitants of the earth.
The word “Mankind” means, literally:
• The human race in its entirety;
I find it difficult, given all I've looked at, to find anything but a flub here.
I do not think the two phrases are poetry in either version.
Normal conversational English would probably dictate that the lack of the word "a" before "man" renders the whole thing redundant at the least and nonsense at worst.
But, of course, it all comes down to quite subjective interpretations of both meaning and poetry.
Folks can take it or leave it any way they like, as far as I'm concerned.
Originally posted by FMFI agree he changed from what he had planned to say as he said it. It was an emotional moment.
??? Er... it has been established that he got it wrong. He has admitted it.
It was about modesty? Subtly emphasizes the debt owed to all the other people?
Poetically, I think it does somehow sound more inclusive the way he said it -- although it makes less literal sense.
We lit off firecrackers on the front porch and yelled "Hurrah for the astronauts!" at passing cars afterwards.
Originally posted by FMF[/b]how many little kids had to go hungry because the funds were better spent on researching a 40-year-old sound clip?
[b]Neil Armstrong missed out an "a" and did not say "one small step for a man" when he set foot on the Moon in 1969, a linguistic analysis has confirmed.
The researchers show for the first time that he intended to say "a man" and that the "a" may have been lost because he was under pressure.
They say that although the phrase was not strictly correct, it wa s is nonsense?
Does anyone agree with the article's 'poetic' analyis?
Originally posted by zeeblebotI think you'll find that letting little kids go hungry is done deliberately in order to drive down labour costs, and has nothing to do with whether or not we research 40-year-old sound clips? But your kind concern is noted.
how many little kids had to go hungry because the funds were better spent on researching a 40-year-old sound clip?[/b]
Originally posted by FMFwhat need to drive labor costs down in Sudan or Zimbabwe?
I think you'll find that letting little kids go hungry is done deliberately in order to drive down labour costs, and has nothing to do with whether or not we research 40-year-old sound clips? But your kind concern is noted.
Originally posted by spruce112358But the quote as Armstrong said it is actually non-sense.
I would say poetry isn't about sense but about evoking feeling.
Surely "man" in this context means the same as "mankind", so he is repeating the meaning of man/mankind, but with opposite senses of the size of the step. Which is meaningless.
Armstrong reportedly thought he had said "a man" - which does make sense (as a result of him, a man, taking a small, literal step, mankind had taken a giant, metaphorical leap).
I still think the "a man" version is poetic because the stress still falls on "man".
[I agree in general with your sentiments, though - feeling usually trumps sense in poetry.]