Couples, what secret language do you use to tell each other details that the company you're in doesn't understand or notice?

Shaka, when the walls fell

My wife knows that if I say "Honey, I need to do that thing with my butt" she knows I have to poop, with everyone else listening blissfully unaware.

That's pretty slick, might have to steal it
- Ok but don't use it in Canada I can't risk people learning what it means around here
That sounds so much worse than just saying you need to poop.

When my wife can't remember someone's name, she'll grab my hand and squeeze it with two quick squeezes "Help. Me.".

That's my cue to either work their name into a comment/question or, if I don't know them, introduce myself followed by a "And you are..?". Works pretty well all of the time.

Of course, being together so long, and loving to fuck with each other's heads when we can, sometimes I'll just stand there and give them my best Aussie "owzitgoin?", and watch my wife squirm. That's usually when the nails dig into my hand, hoping to draw blood.

Worth it.

If we are together one of us will use the phrase "Is there Lemon in this?" And hold up our drink which is code for get me out if this conversation/situation.

If we aren't in the same room. We pull out our phone and text Save Me. Then the other person comes and finds you to say that So and So needs them immediately. Yadda, yadda.

You can't just yadda yadda over the good parts.
If you did that in front of me I would pick up on it immediately, without any prior knowledge of your code.

I swear people who use sloppy codes think the rest of us are stupid.
- What a weird way to tell people that you frequently get left behind because of your personality.

Both my wife and my friends know this one.

If you ever see me drinking a Bud Light Lime, talking about Bud Light Lime, or requesting a Bud Light Lime, that means I’m likely being held against my will. Come back with the police.

this a blatant ploy by Bud Light Lime to try to sell a single bottle
- Nah, don’t need to actually have one. Just need to request one.
  
  “Hey man, haven’t heard from you in a while. You alright?”
  
  “Yeah, everything’s great man. Just sitting here drinking a Bud light lime.”
  
  “Bud light lime? For real?”
  
  “Yeah, man. Definitely a bud light lime kind of day.”
  
  “You need me to call the cops?”
  
  “Sure thing man. Thanks for checking in.”
  
  Hell, it doesn’t even need to be in production anymore.
- But it's actually not that bad.... It's not good beer but whatever it is, it's nice 🙂

My spouse and I lived in a bunch of countries over the years. We speak Quebec French, English, and Spanish, as well as a smattering of Chinese, Bulgarian, Korean, and a few odds and ends here and there.

We basically speak whatever we think people around us won't understand. Very colloquial Quebec French in non-French-speaking countries, Chinese around white people, Bulgarian around non-white people, or even a cryptic mix of everything when we're not completely sure.

We figure anyone who understands is probably someone we want to know... Hasn't happened very often, but it does happen. So far we weren't saying anything overly embarrassing when we got caught, but we sure as hell have no filter between us because of this!

I've taught my husband to speak a bit of Japanese, but we don't use it this way because that's extremely rude.
- I wouldn't say we speak in people's faces, but we make comments to each other about random stuff. I would never say something rude about somebody in their faces, but my spouse might go, "Can we go back to the hotel, I really need to take a shit" or something silly and unfiltered like that.
- That's probably a cultural thing, isn't it? In diverse areas, people don't expect to understand what they hear others say, so there's no "Speak ___; we're in ___" culture.
I love those videos where people are caught trying to have a private conversation by someone who speaks an unexpected language! Also it's shocking to me how many people loudly speak common dialects of Chinese and don't expect anyone to follow... literally over a billion humans can understand Mandarin, someone is listening.
- Haha, I've caught plenty of Chinese speakers having what they presume are private conversations in my presence, and sometimes even about me. People just automatically assume non-Asians can't speak Chinese, even when these non-Asians live in China.
I mean, anyone with a brain understands that when you’re using a language nobody else understands, that you’re talking shit about people in the room.

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist of even a bilingual to figure that out.
- That's a really weird attitude. I come from a multicultural city where people speak their own language in public all the time and nobody presumes it has anything to do with them. Why would it?
- You have low expectations. Sometimes we just want to keep embarrassing stuff on the low.

The last time we were in Paris my wife and I came down with a stomach bug that gave us explosive diarrhea. Now, rather than say we have diarrhea and need to rush home we say we're "feeling rather Parisian".

Russians used to go to the sea through Latvia, during the Czarist times. They often got sea sick. A case of any kind of gastric distress became a "trip to Riga." (I learned this in a Russian language class. It may not be true, but I intend to believe it, regardless if it's actual truth. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to know if I'm being unreasonable. It's a sign of strength of character )
- Native russian speaker from Riga here, never heard this expression in my life.

“Do we have any pineapple at home?” is our safe word for social situations when one of us needs a reason to leave a situation or change the conversation because they’re uncomfortable. I detest pineapple.

You must really dislike it - I'd have trouble not laughing if someone asked me this.
What if they go "sure, I'll get you some"?
- “Oh no, I want to bake a pineapple upside down cake later, I’m not hungry now.”

"Paying bills" == having sex

For us, it's "Paying bills" == "Paying bills"...
So once a month?
- Uh, different bills have different due dates, yeah that's it
I have mine on "autopay".

Sign Language works pretty well.

We picked it up when my daughter was younger and we just kept going. Now we use it to speak to each other from across the room during loud events.

It also lets you read other sign language folks! I ease-dropped on some signing folks during lunch one day. Made me feel like a spy.
- Just fyi, it’s eavesdrop.

Ha! Our trick is that we're never with company. We are very boring homebodies.

This is the way.
What's "company?"
- I think in this context it just means "when around other people, generally in some group function, like a party or reunion."

Dinosaur noises, typically when we're trying to find each other.

My dad would meow loudly when him and my mom got separated while shopping. Mom would rush over as fast as possible to shut him up.
- My wife would pretend she doesn't know me go the other direction.

If I tell my partner that something drains the color out of a room, she knows that whomever I'm talking to is a bigot/phobe and we leave. More often than not though, she'll ask me who it is and tell them off.

This is amazing, I love it.
- Well, sometimes she is a bit overprotective, once she punched someone who wasn't respecting my pronouns LOL.

Instead of spelling it out or code, my wife and I will use increasingly obscure synonyms to hide our conversations from the kids.

They figured out "frozen confection" meant ice cream, so I need a new one.

I do this as well. I can't say I've kept a lot of secrets, but at least the kids have a large vocabulary.
- This is how we started too, but as our kid gets older it just all becomes part of his vocabulary. He already has a really peculiar vocabulary to begin with so add our code words to it and it's just... very interesting.
Hypercooled dairy sugar blend
- Lacto-saccharine sounds better
'ice cold milk.' Could be talking about a glass of dairy, or a delightful dessert.
Subzero dairy

Pig Latin. Kids haven’t figured it out yet. One can spell so that went out the window.

Next stop is probably Morse code.

.-..-. ... . -. -.. -. ..- -.. . ... .-..-.

Movie quotes. It's amazing how many questioning looks we get from other people when quoting movies to each other.

Get in there, you big furry oaf; I don’t car what you smell!
- Who’s “Scruffy-lookin”?!

None. My wife doesn't know about tact, or the polite white lie or anything like that. She doesn't have time for that bullshit. It's one of her endearing qualities.

During the pandemic, my wife and I became more expressive with our eyes, because of our masks.

If I notice her going neutral face with her eyes, I know she's about to get upset. Where if my eyebrows pretty clearly tell my mood to her.

Apparently my eyes go soft when I'm being silly. I enjoyed hearing it but I have no idea what it means
- Been told almost verbatim the same thing, no idea what it means either. Friend in question said they knew me for years before they were able to notice it.

Nice try. It's secret.

A “look” is usually enough to let each other know something is up.
We haven’t really figured out how to communicate what that “something” is though and always end up more confused than informed.

Nice try.

Around the kids, when they were young, we used French for those things we didn't want them to know about. She's fluent and I don't really speak it at all, but took it back in High School and remembered enough vocabulary to make it work.

Today, both our boys have taken years of Spanish and they speak in Spanish for those things that they don't want us to know. LOL

Around other adults, my wife and I have a system of looks that we give each other. We can have an entire conversation just by giving each other looks.

Korean

Ready to go home?

Steve is just a jackoff today. Right?

Yep. 😘 fuck him. Let's go home.

Sometimes Irish.

"Táim ag fáil bás anseo. Cabhair mé."
- Pog mo thoin! I only remember the rude stuff. Literally read a bumper sticker like one time and it never left after over 20 years.

Might just be cus we're both neurodivergent, but we have a lot of non verbal cues, though he's nowhere near as showy as I am.

Whenever I end up overstimmed and go non-verbal, I tug at his shirt gently, or paw at him. From then it's simple ASL. For him, he genuinely just has simple phrasing or wordings that are kind of "key words" between us. The both of us are high functioning in our 20s, this is just kind of how it ended up and we're both super not subtle about it. It's great.

Edit: we literally do pigeon noises at each other at random. One of us says coo and the other goes roo. It's literally just a "thing" between us and it started because of us watching pigeons together and it stuck.

Most people around us usually get it so isn't really a "secret" language, but my wife and I are big Simpsons fans so we talk in quotes all the time.

One that gets a lot of play is "I'm going... to... stalk... Lenny and Carl" for when we're going somewhere but really sure what we're going to do

My wife of 8 years is from mainland China so I learned Chinese awhile back. We live in the USA which means no one understands Chinese, so we speak that for privacy lol.

when one of us says something to someone else (usually our kids) that is going to screw both of us over the other says it "shut up, net face"

What does it mean?
- The Simpson’s S11 E12

Pig-Latin but very fast. Decades of practice.

I handed my girlfriend a hair tie once while at my parents house. Good times were had.

I just text; don't have to worry about someone else picking it up.

This was taught to me,

Snuggle and cuddle. Tell the person you want to cuddle, means to curl up together under a blanket and watch a movie. Tell the person snuggle when you want to fuck (but your being discreet). And if your hair looks a little messed up or someone asks what y'all been doing... snuggling 🥰

English.

Very rudimentary Japanese, or incredibly elaborate/old Englishy stylized speech

I wouldn't call either of these particularly secret, but whatever, they're fun.

Excess material = a very large shit, often multiple shits.

Trip insurance = using the bathroom before getting in the car, whether it's needed or not. I came up with this one as a child, and it's now in widespread use in my extended family, especially with the nieces and nephews.

When we travel: speak japanese. Else, we've been together enough to know each other pretty well and often don't need to say much aloud to communicate something

My AuDHD self went and married another ADHD person, and we are both full of little non-verbal cues we give each other, and they range from Significant Glances to discreet groping. We communicate well (and I 100% think the reason we get along so well is because we communicate) and non-verbal is just part of it.