Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Ditto on spelling and grammar checkers.

My favorite counter-example was when a spelling and gammar checker, which will go nameless, but is associated with a giant software company and one of the richest men in the word, insisted that "doing good for all people" should be "doing well for all people."

I try to live by the "doing good" philosophy, but others, it is very clear, are committed to the "doing well" philosophy.

I heard Armstrong live, and it always bothered me when folks changed his words to include the "a." Clearly the statement with the "a" shows greater rhetorical structure (OK. Without the "a" it makes almost no sense.). Recently I stumbled on the transcript from NASA with its discussion of this very topic:
NASA transcript

I feel much better now.

There's a WWII memoir titled Bootprints, too. I think you're safe on this one.

And Glenn, Armstrong's line doesn't bother me. I just remember that the teachers at school and all my classmates were trying to figure it out. This was way before you could get instant answers on Google (even before calculators!), and apparently none of us was bright enough to figure out that it made perfect sense adding an 'a'. Or, maybe we were too polite to consider the possibility that Armstrong could have made a mistake.

If we had the internet back then, and the Way With Words forum, and if NASA and Armstrong had come to us for advice, I'm sure we could have helped them improve the first words spoken by a man on the moon. Or, maybe we would have suggested that Ham the Astrochimp should have been first to set foot, babbling eloquently for all humanity.