Slightly tangential but since it appears near the start of the article:

As an American I recall being very surprised the first time I traveled to England and realized that “pence” is literally the same as “pennies” - just a different way of pluralizing it. As a kid I just thought it was some obscure division of numbers like “fortnight” or “score.”

I imagined it worked something like “four farthings to a pence and twelve pence to a pound” or something. :)