Originally Posted by
sheffield hatter
One of the strange consequences of decimalisation was the way language changed too. Before, we had a penny, tuppence, thruppence, sixpence, etc. "Pence" in this context is clearly the plural of penny. However, if you were referring to more than one penny, the plural in normal usage was pennies. After D-Day this all changed, and we spoke of "three new pence" instead of "three pennies". This led to the use of "pence" as a general word for the new coinage, as in "have you got one pence?". So the old plural became the new singular. And now if I go to the post office for change and ask for a bag of tuppences, they don't know what I'm talking about. I have to say "two pence pieces".