Article-ations

I never know what will bolt out of Space when my little boy is on the watch.

Under his visor, this week, was a web page on Neil Armstrong. At school, having covered a short chapter on the astronaut, it so happened that my son’s first internet search on the man, coincidently, presented itself on July 20, exactly 40 years to the day Mr Armstrong first stepped on the surface of the moon.
Small step. Beat 1.

In the Language part of the same subject, the current topic of exploration is the Articles, a, an and the. We had completed an extensive worksheet and other exercises, by the end of which my son was quite a little master of their usage.

This is what shocked me earlier. He repeatedly intoned: “The-is-used-with-a-par-ti-cu-lar-noun-or-with-the-name-of-some-thing-that-is-one-of-its-kind. The-is-called-the-de-fi-nite-arti-cle. The-in-de-fi-nite-arti-cle-is-used-be-fore-a-common-noun-that-is-sing-ular-in-num-ber. A-is-used-bef-ore-a-con-so-nant-and-an-is-used-be-fore-a-vowel-sound. They-are-called-in-de-fi-nite-arti-cles”. Then he went on to the examples. Wait! He is seven. Should he even know these qualified definitions? Isn’t it just ample to explain the basic rule and get the kids to practice the usage? But I guess this needs to be addressed in another piece altogether.

Back to what beat me. Son in front of laptop, laments in high pitch: “This is wrong. He does not even know about articles!" Puzzled, I looked at the screen. In bold italics was a flash image of Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon: That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.

My little boy was still frowning. He couldn’t have. My 2-day old Master of Articles couldn’t have! He exasperated, “which man mamma, and why is the man kind, anyway?” Sigh!

Well, I would just have to sit down with him again and go over, definitely, the indefinite, and particularly, the perfect. No problem.

But however the little guy understood it, the fact remained: Mr Armstrong, astronaut of astronomical significance, first man on the moon, indeed seemed to have missed an article! Not the particular kind NASA would provide but the one indefinitely used in a singular context and preceding a consonant sound in a sentence articulated by English speaking earthlings.
Giant Leap. Beat 2.

My task for the day, now, was this: distract my impressionable child from the grammatical gaffe of the first man to land on the moon and hence do Planet Earth proud. I had to impress upon him, instead, the greatness this man had achieved in completing a mission that would reconfigure the course of space travel and scientific scope thereof.

And then I would have to reiterate that at seven ‘he’, my son, would have to be absolutely sure of his a, an and the. To rocket to the moon, he would have to simply wait ‘for ages’ until he ‘grew up’.

At that precise moment though, I had to answer the question, “ ... and why is the man kind, anyway?” Of course, I also had to agree that as per what was taught in school that week, in omitting the Big A, Mr Armstrong had indeed uttered a contradiction as his opening statement to Moon. I have to say that the three inch smile beaming up at me was worth three times as many lunar landings!

But he is little, see? So information had to be dispensed suitably. And only what he would agree with without collision, could be imparted. Suffice to say, I survive. As does (thankfully) his grammar teacher at school.

Aside. Subsequent hearings of the transmission and accessible transcripts (nasa.com) have proven that Mr Armstrong did, in fact, articulate the a before the ‘man’ − bad radio signals between Moon and Earth had eclipsed the quick utterance. Can you imagine the gravity of the situation, had grammar, of all things weighty, let a moon-walking spaceman down?! End of aside.

But the week was still young. My teesra tigaada hadn’t struck. And culturally, it is common knowledge how No. 3 is considered, well, inauspicious.

Two days after the 40th anniversary of mankind obliterating all doubts about ‘a’ man (two, actually) conquering the moon, the moon was to obliterate the sun in totality. My once-in-a-century opportunity to personally witness this phenomenon was eclipsed by a long night of many questions and further articulations that indefinitely preceded the definitive event, early on Wednesday morning a fortnight back. In ‘consonance’ with all predictions prior to the event and its effects yet to follow, we still await eclipse No. 3 in this particular celestial triumvirate. What is to come?
Beat 3. Or third time lucky?

Incidentally, we are the third ball from the sun. And numeric placement wise, auspicious or not, it is a pretty, happy place to be, I say.