, oxen; goose, geese; foot, feet; tooth,
teeth; louse, lice; mouse, mice; die, dice_ or _dies; penny, pence_ or
_pennies; pea, pease_ or _peas_. The word _brethren_ is now applied only to
fellow-members of the same church or fraternity; for sons of the same
parents we always use _brothers_; and this form is sometimes employed in
the other sense. _Dice_ are spotted cubes for gaming; _dies_ are stamps for
coining money, or for impressing metals. _Pence_, as _six pence_, refers to
the amount of money in value; _pennies_ denotes the corns themselves. "We
write _peas_, for two or more individual seeds; but _pease_, for an
indefinite number in quantity or bulk."_--Webster's Dict._ This last
anomaly, I think, might well enough "be spared; the sound of the word being
the same, and the distinction to the eye not always regarded." Why is it
not as proper, to write an order for "a bushel of _peas_," as for "a bushel
of _beans_?" "_Peas_ and _beans_ may be severed from the ground before they
be quite dry."_--Cobbett's E. Gram._, 31.

OBS. 20.--When a compound, ending with any of the foregoing irregular
words, is made plural, it follows the fashion of the word with which it
ends: as, _Gentleman, gentlemen; bondwoman, bondwomen; foster-child,
foster-children; solan-goose, solan-geese; eyetooth, eyeteeth; woodlouse,
woodlice_;[143] _dormouse, dormice; half-penny, halfpence, half-pennies_.
In this way, these irregularities extend to many words; though some of the
metaphorical class, as _kite's-foot, colts-foot, bear's-foot, lion's-foot_,
being names of plants, have no plural. The word _man_, which is used the
most frequently in this way, makes more than seventy such compounds. But
there are some words of this ending, which, not being compounds of _man_,
are regular: as, _German, Germans; Turcoman, Turcomans; Mussulman,
Mussulmans; talisman, talismans; leman, lemans; caiman, caimans_.

OBS. 21.--Compounds, in general, admit but one variation to form the
plural, and that must be made in the principal word, rather than in the
adjunct; but where the terms differ little in importance, the genius of the
language obviously inclines to a variation of the last only. Thus we write
_fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, knights-errant, courts-martial,
cousins-german, hangers-on, comings-in, goings-out, goings-forth_, varying
the first; and _manhaters, manstealers, manslayers, maneaters, mandrills,
handfuls, spoonfuls, mouthfuls, pailfuls, outpourings, ing