The words before sunrise

A group of runners meets in Dubai before sunrise twice a week, and within a month of joining, a newcomer can barely follow the conversation.

It is not that they are unfriendly. It is that they have a whole vocabulary. Nicknames for each stretch of the route. A short word for the easy run after a hard one. A phrase for the person who always sprints the last hundred metres. A way of saying how someone is feeling that only makes sense if you were there in June.

It is tempting to see this as a wall, built to keep strangers at a distance. And there is something in that. But it is also a strange sort of wall, because a word nobody else understands is useless. The whole point of a word is that someone can receive it. The moment the newcomer learns what the short word means, the wall has a door in it.

So why keep inventing them?

Because the vocabulary is not really about secrecy. It is about belonging. Every time a runner uses one of those words, they are saying something about themselves as well as the route. I am one of the people who knows this. I was here. The newcomer who uses the word correctly for the first time is not just passing on information. They are joining.

Brands, neighbourhoods and fan groups find the same thing. The private shorthand is less about who is shut out than about who is let in, and how it feels to be let in.

Speak like a member for long enough, and a member is what you become.