One endearing element of raising small humans is their propensity to invent new words, or to find new and unexpected uses for existing ones. Socks become ‘ta-ta-toes’, the irrefutable logic being that, on applying a sock, you say ta-ta to the toes that disappear into it. (The removal of said sock, perhaps just moments after it went on, has been known to elicit a murmured “hello toes”, but this hasn’t yet made its mark on the domestic lexicon to quite the same degree.)

Before I know it, these toddler neologisms will fade into memory. The time will soon come when it’s easier just to call them socks like everybody else. It’s tricky enough to keep track of the thousands of words that have found their way into common usage, without also having to remember (and explain) the ones you’ve coined yourself. Come adulthood, you’ll barely remember the multitude of terms invented by your tiny self for everyday things, and the rest of your life will be spent using words invented by others. Which is inevitable, but a pity nonetheless.

The exceptions to this rule tend to arise in social groups: closed sets of friends, colleagues or team-mates who are the only people in the world who know or care what a Womnack or a P-tea is. For as long as these words remain in the collective memory, they provide a bond between the members of the group that time and distance cannot break. And that’s a lovely thing indeed.

In this context, there are around eight people on this planet who could correctly identify slee on a colour chart, following its accidental invention in a disastrous attempt at art (it’s somewhere between grey, brown and purple, yet strangely unlike all three). Those same people are also the only ones who know the difference between a morridge and a jerp.

But these two terms deserve to be more widely understood. A morridge and a jerp are two contrasting ways of getting from A to B. A jerp will take you to your destination as quickly and directly as possible, whereas a morridge is more leisurely, and prone to spontaneous detours and pauses. (To be clear, a morridge is not the same as an aimless wander; the morridger still has an ultimate destination in mind; it’s just slightly further towards the back of it.)

For the benefit of future lexicographers, the terms originate from a teenage holiday in a beach hut on the Solway Firth, during which the two main activities were to visit the pub that lay a few miles in one direction, or the ice cream shop a few miles in the other. These journeys happened often enough that they could easily have become repetitious; but the scenery was pretty, and time was plentiful, so we’d usually morridge there and jerp back, or vice versa.

Thirty years on, whenever I see any of the same friends, we’ll still talk about jerping and morridging without need for additional context, to the bewilderment of everyone else. I’m still proud that the sounds of our made-up words help to convey their meanings; not quite onomatopoeic perhaps, but it’s obvious which of the two activities is quicker and more purposeful. And I don’t know of any single word in English that quite captures the essence of either of them.

But if only one of these words should ultimately make it into the OED – I don’t want to be too greedy – then it should be morridge. We all do more than enough jerping already. Every commute, school run or shopping trip is a jerp. When we jerp, our sights are fixed so clearly on the destination that we wish away the journey. And that’s mostly OK; few of us have so much spare time on our hands that every trip can be a leisurely one. But there’s much to be said for a journey that provides scope to pause, look around and let the brain absorb something new – even if that involves nothing more than an impromptu pint in a pub beside an unfamiliar station, where you’ve hopped off to await a later train that’s not quite so full of jerpers.

These morridging moments, I’ve begun to realise, are the ones that provide the signposts in my memory. I’ve no great connection with Taunton, Dingwall or Grenoble; but if one of them is mentioned, all of a sudden I recall the book I was reading in that café, the sound of the rain on that bus shelter, the shop where I almost bought those ta-ta-toes. When these snippets of memory arise, they prompt others, and I find myself remembering people, places and events that had remained dormant in the mind for years. Over the same period I’ve undertaken countless jerps, and I barely remember a thing about any of them.

So the campaign to add ‘morridge’ to the dictionary starts here. Join me if you will, but either way, I’d strongly advocate adopting the practice. Because as the kids will all be saying in a few years, a morridge is worth a thousand jerps. ■