It's "helping" in an incredibly pedantic and unhelpful way. The developer has opted to add explicit support for the common option, but only as a means to tell the user that they are "holding it wrong" (in the immortal words of Apple)
>> aim wand at perodactyl
> I see no perodactyl here.
>> aim wand at pterodacyl
> I see no pterodacyl here.
Frustrated at my continuing mistakes, I decided to try to short-circuit their logic. Despite knowing the difference, I typed this:
> aim wand at bird
And the game replied:
> a pterodactyl is not a bird