October 03, 2006
Armstrong's abbreviated article: notes from the expert
In response to our flurry
of
postings,
Neil Armstrong's biographer, James Hansen, sent some comments that,
with his permission, I include below. That's him over there on the
right hand side. As you'll see from his messages, while he scolds me
lightly for historical carelessness, he's generally encouraging of the
linguist's enterprise. He also throws some light on the background both
of Armstrong's quote and Shann Ford's analysis, and even suggests some
rather natural lines of linguistic analysis.Here's the first message:
|
look at Peter's analysis. Actually, Peter told me and others he would welcome it. It will also be interesting to see what NASA's experts conclude. Of course, Peter is not arguing that a "canonical 'a'" was expressed. But he clearly regards it as a sound coming from Neil and exactly the place where Neil intended to put the vowel. Peter definitely believes it is not static, a question that we certainly asked him. His comparison of the "for [a] man" and "for mankind" is obviously very different from your own. It's amazing how many people have become fascinated with this. Do you see any plusses for your field? Jim |
Jim's next message followed my most recent post:
Very interesting, David. You make an interesting point about your community of practitioners at the end. I do have a couple of constructive criticisms, if I may. If you publish more on this, and I hope you do, try to make the historical context as accurate as possible. For example, you write, "He spent several hours rehearsing!" In fact, he didn't. Neil only composed the phrase in his head sometime after the landing and going through all the emergency liftoff procedures, etc. He had no more than two hours from the time he thought it up to the time he uttered it. Peter is actually very well versed in the Apollo 11 history, aside from reading my book. One of the reasons that Peter was so convincing to me, Neil, NASM, and NASA was that he knew the details of the Apollo 11 mission very well. They can be very important to the analysis. Also, you should take into consideration, even more so than Peter does, that Neil comes from northwestern Ohio. I come from northeastern Indiana, only 60 miles from where Neil grew up. There is a regional accent to consider. "For a" is often expressed is 'foruh," virtually as one syllable. Personally, that is my theory. At our meeting in National Air and Space, I suggested to Peter that someone should look for ALL of the expressions of the "a" word throughout the voice communication recordings. Surely if Neil "swallowed" the "a" in some way for his historic expression, he also did it many other times. Right? Anyway, I appreciate your generous comment about Peter's democratic approach to trying to resolve this mystery. He has spent the last 5-6 years looking at voice wave files as it relates to his Neuro-Server technology. So, though he does not have all the insights and techniques of your very important academic discipline, he does have some very interesting and useful background experience. Best, Jim |
The dialect issue is a natural one to consider, though my impression is that one syllable "for a," perhaps becoming "fruh," is more widespread than Jim suggests. Casually, this doesn't seem to be what Armstrong produced, though it merits further study. And Jim's suggestion that someone take a look at all the "a" words in the voice communication recordings, or at least a controlled subset of them, is spot on. Any linguists out there who are up for it?
Posted by David Beaver at October 3, 2006 10:19 PM