Was Neil Armstrong's Ohio accent to blame for millions mishearing his famous moon landing quote?

Speech scientists studied Armstrong's accent during recordings of his famous 'one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind' quote

They also analysed the accents of 40 other people from in and around his hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio

Researchers found that participants typically blended their words and this may be the cause for millions mishearing Armstrong's words



The controversy surrounding why Neil Armstrong's famous moon quote was misheard by millions of people worldwide may have been less to do with dodgy recording equipment and more to do with his unique Ohio accent.



When Armstrong walked on the moon the astronaut claimed to have said: 'That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind', but most listeners claim they can't hear the first 'a' and the statement has become best known without it.



Poor recording equipment was previously blamed for the mishearing, yet linguistic experts now claim a unique feature of Armstrong's Ohio accent could be to blame.



During the moon landing of 1969, Neil Armstrong was recorded by Nasa as saying: 'That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' However, many people claim they can't hear Armstrong's 'a' in the recording and the quote has become famous with it missing. This mishearing was initially blamed on poor recording equipment, yet speech scientists from Michigan and Ohio claim it could have been caused by the way Armstrong's accent made him blend his words

US astronaut Neil Armstrong always stood by the fact he said 'for a' and not 'for' in his famous moon landing quote from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969

Speech scientists from Michigan State University and Ohio State University analysed the clip and studied how speakers from his native central Ohio pronounce 'for' and 'for a'.

The team suggest that in the midwestern American state Ohio there is typically a lot of blending between words such as 'for' and 'a.'

And these results suggest it's entirely possible that Armstrong said what he claimed, even though people are statistically more likely to hear 'for man' instead of 'for a man' on the recording.

Dr Laura Dilley of Michigan State, said: 'Prior acoustic analyses of Neil Armstrong's recording have established well that if the word 'a' was spoken, it was very short and was fully blended acoustically with the preceding word.'

'If Armstrong actually did say 'a', it sounded something like "frrr(uh).'

'His blending of the two words, compounded with the poor sound quality of the transmission, has made it difficult for people to corroborate his claim that the 'a' is there.'

Dilley and her colleagues carried out a statistical analysis of the duration of the 'r' sound as spoken by native central Ohioans saying 'for' and 'for a' in natural conversation.



When Neil Armstrong listened back to the recordings of his famous moon quote, he admitted that he hadn't heard himself say the 'a' either but insists he did actually say the often misheard words

FURTHER EVIDENCE TO BACK UP ARMSTRONG'S CLAIMS

In 2006, a computer analysis found evidence that Armstrong said what he said he said. Peter Shann Ford, an Australian computer programmer, ran a software analysis looking at sound waves and found a wave that would have been the missing 'a'. It lasted 35 milliseconds, much too quick to be heard. The Smithsonian's space curator, Roger Launius, looked at the evidence and found it convincing. NASA has also stood by its moon man. 'If Neil Armstrong says there was an 'a,' then as far as we're concerned, there was 'a,'' NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said shortly before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. Armstrong died in August last year, aged 82, and maintained until the end that there was a lost word in his famous words from the moon.

They used a collection of recordings of conversational speech from 40 people raised in Columbus, Ohio, near Armstrong's native town of Wapakoneta.

Within these recordings they found 191 cases of 'for a.'



They then matched each of these to an instance of 'for' as said by the same speaker and compared the relative duration.

They also examined the duration of Armstrong's 'for (a') from Nasa's lunar transmission.

They discovered a large overlap between the relative duration of the 'r' sound in 'for' and 'for a' using the Ohio speech data.



The duration of the 'frrr(uh)' in Armstrong's recording was 0.127 seconds, which falls into the middle of this overlap, though it is a slightly better match for when the 'a' is missing.



This means that the quotation is compatible with either possible interpretation but the researchers accept it is slightly more likely to be perceived as 'for', regardless of what Armstrong actually said.







In 2006, computer analysis found evidence that Armstrong said what he said he said and this may have been backed up by a linguistics study by speech scientists at Michigan State and Ohio State University. They analysed his famous quote and the accents of 40 other people who grew up in the same state as Armstrong



Dr Dilley says there may have been a 'perfect storm of conditions' for the word 'a' to have been spoken but not heard.

She said: 'We've bolstered Neil Armstrong's side of the story.

'We feel we've partially vindicated him.



'But we'll most likely never know for sure exactly what he said based on the acoustic information.'

She said that the work has implications beyond Armstrong's timeless quotation.

Dilley added : 'Every time we listen to speech and think we understand a sentence, we are performing a miraculous task, which is to take what is actually a continuous acoustic signal, break up that signal into somewhat arbitrary parts, and map those parts to our memories of all the words that we know in the language.

'We need only look at computer speech recognition and how it succeeds and how it largely often fails to see how very difficult that problem is.'

Astronaut Neil Armstrong died last August aged 82. He maintained until the end that there was a lost word in his famous words from the moon

Dilley and her team's findings will be presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics in Montreal.



In 2006, computer analysis similarly found evidence that Armstrong said what he said he said.

Peter Shann Ford, an Australian computer programmer, ran a software analysis looking at sound waves and found a wave that would have been the missing 'a'.



It lasted 35 milliseconds, much too quick to be heard.



Neil Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta in the midwestern American state of Ohio. Speech scientists found that people from this region blend their words and this could be the reason why the 'a' is so often misheard in Armstrong's famous moon quote

The Smithsonian's space curator, Roger Launius, looked at the evidence and found it convincing and Nasa also stood by its moon man.

'If Neil Armstrong says there was an 'a,' then as far as we're concerned, there was 'a,'' NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said shortly before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.

Armstrong, who died last August aged 82, maintained until the end that there was a lost word in his famous words from the moon.