One penny, twenty pence
Most plurals in English are formed by adding –s or –es to a singular noun as in song s , sandwich es , and glass es . Many of these forms, however, show irregular spellings. Leaf, life and half , for instance, become leaves, lives and halves . The different endings in holidays and dictionaries are explained by a simple rule – whether there is a vowel or a consonant before the final –y in the singular. But it isn’t so easy to see why the plural forms of pian o and tomato are, respectively, pianos and tomatoes . There are also other kinds of irregularities, some of which are found in everyday words like woman-women , man-men , and child-children . Similarly, mice, feet and teeth are the plural forms of mouse, foot and tooth . Pence is the plural of penny – usually referring to sums of money, while the regular form pennies tends to be used to name one-penny coins. And to talk about more than one person , we generally use the term people . Some words, on t...