A Few Good Reasons from the Academy of Reality:
Why name a pigeon, “Penguin Four?” It turns out the name’s no joke. The book’s anonymous author used the word ‘penguin’ as if it were an old English word synonymous with ‘pigeon.’ Traveling by ship was risky. Luxury cruises to the Antarctic were out of the question. The place was not yet on the map; no one had ever seen or heard of penguins. No one needed two different words to describe a northern hemisphere bird. Who knows if Old English favored ‘penguin’ over ‘pigeon.’ It doesn’t matter. Calling a ‘pigeon’ ‘penguin’ might make Institute bird life confusing but stop and think: History’s choice of bird words makes as much sense as the names of our three consultants, ‘Smith,’ ‘Jones,’ and ‘Jonson.’