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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for March 31, 1999
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penguin [n. PENG-gwin]
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A penguin is any of various stout, flightless marine diving birds that
live in cool regions of the southern hemisphere. Penguins are colored
white in front and black in back, looking as if they are wearing
tuxedoes.
The source of the word is mysterious. As early as the fifteenth
century, accounts of voyages to the southern oceans referred to small
black and white seabirds found there, calling them penguins.
The most commonly accepted explanation was offered by the British
scholar John Selden in 1613. He speculated that the name might have
come from the Welsh "pen gwyn" (head of white), another name for the
great auk, a flightless, black and white diving bird that could then
be found on islands in the North Atlantic.
On seeing the flightless, black and white southern birds, Welsh
sailors might have applied the same name. Later, the northern great
auk became extinct, but the southern birds kept the name.
Counting penguins on an island near Australia:
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~salmon/gabo.html
Today's Cool Fact is about penguins:
http://www.cool-fact.com/archive/1999/03/31.html
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