History Main / SpySpeak

* Brilliantly parodied in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' book ''Literature/GuardsGuards'': a secret cultist goes through a length of sign countersign for a password, only to find that he's talking to a different secret cult, when he gets some of it confused. Especially since the password is four different sign/countersign pairs, and these two unrelated secret societies which coincidentally have headquarters on the same street, have identical sign/countersign pairs for the first three exchanges.

Subtrope to DoubleMeaning. See also ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish, AttackPatternAlpha, MilitaryAlphabet, TalkingThroughTechnique and ReportingNames. Can overlap with PublicSecretMessage. May result in MistakenForBadass. CodenameTitle is when this shows up in the name of the work.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': In one episode, the victim seems to have been a spy (it's eventually revealed he was playing a spy-themed {{LARP}}, but same thing), and they find a pen among his possessions that tells them a meeting place and code phrase and response "Aren't you Steve's friend?" "No, Steve is my brother." Castle picks out a woman and gives her the first line, but she utterly fails to give the response, leading him to press her further. Then a man comes up to Castle and gives the first phrase.

* Creator/DaveBarry does this when his directions to a point of interest in Sweden ends with "tell the man standing on the corner that the oyster owns a fine wristwatch. He'll know what to do."

* In Lawrence Block's ''Literature/TannersTwelveSwingers'' Evan has to go through this to enter an apparently-closed cafe in Krakow.

* In ''Literature/ThePlantThatAteDirtySocks'', Norman, realizing the weirdness of his home situation, comes up with the idea of using code words such as "'''ice cream'''" for "'''sock'''", "'''chocolate'''" for "'''dirty'''", "'''cat'''" for "'''plant'''", etc. A nosy girl overhears this and asks him about why his '''cats''' eat so much '''ice cream'''.

* Similarly, an old Egyptian joke involves a Mossad agent turning an Egyptian idiot named Nabil. Weeks later, his colleague comes to Cairo and knocks on a door:

This confusion played a major part in the Battle of Midway. The US knew the Japanese were on the way to "AF" and suspected they would attack Midway island, but they didn't know for sure. They sent a fake message in the clear stating that Midway needed fresh water, which the island itself has no springs of. Later they intercepted a Japanese message saying that AF was short on water. That's how they found out the Japanese were going to attack Midway.

** Other countries did this as well. To what extent the nature of the operation or project was betrayed by its name varied -- Nazi Germany, for example, on one hand had invasion plans for several countries tied to colors (ex: the first Fall Grun ["Plan Green"] were invasion plans of Czechoslovakia had the Munich Conference fallen apart), which worked out all right. On the other hand, all the British needed to know about a project Nazi Germany had was its name ("Wotan", one German name for Odin, a one-eyed Norse god) to deduce it was a new radar system using a single location -- obviously, that didn't do so well in the obscurity department.

* ''Series/{{The Crown|2016}}'' uses the phrase is "Hyde Park Corner" which is used to inform officials of George VI's death without it leaking to the press. As the [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII new Queen]] is currently in Africa on a safari with limited phone access there's a serious rush to contact her before she learns the news via the media.

* Vernor Vinge's short story "Run Bookworm Run" takes this to an extreme:

--> '''Mr. Loud:''' [slowly and with an affected deep voice]: What kind of lamb did Mary have?\\
'''Lincoln:''' [also with an affected voice]: A little one. With the fleece as white as snow.

* In American politics, the term "dog whistle" is used for a situation where a politician says a seemingly innocent phrase or word, that a certain element of their constituency will recognize as a show of support for their beliefs, while most people won't have a clue. With the large, diverse political parties the US, this allows a politician to give subtle lip-service to the more extreme fringes of their party while (hopefully) not offending the less radical center, basically a political version of GettingCrapPastTheRadar. The term, of course, comes from those whistles that dogs can hear and humans (usually) can't because they're outside the upper bounds of human frequency perception. The term gained popularity among pundits after a strange moment in a 2004 presidential debate in which UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush denounced ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'', the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to African Americans, which was a major catalyst for the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar. At first this was considered a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, until it was explained that opponents of abortion often bring up the Dred Scott decision as an example of the Court making a morally repugnant ruling, with the suggestion that ''Roe v. Wade'' is a similar case that should be overturned in the future. Thus, Bush was signaling support for suspending abortion rights without saying any actual words on the topic. Of course, this had been going on for a long time before that incident, among both parties. References to "inner city" or "urban" crime are often understood to be a veiled attack on ethnic minorities who tend to live in the poorer downtown areas of American cities. Of course, this can lead to situations where some listeners interpret something as a dog whistle when it wasn't actually intended that way.

** Soldiers from Ft. Irwin use code phrases to identify themselves over radio or sat phone communications. These phrases are ad libbed but require a certain combination of pre-arranged words within them. For example:

* ''ComicBook/MortadeloYFilemon'': Usually people around take these words literally with odd results. It doesn't help that several arranged codes seem to be offensive, requiring the agents to insult people having facial hair or a certain ideology or ethnicity. At that moment, an agressive member of that group happens to overhear and deals with them accordingly. Fun fact: In RealLife, Enrique Chicote, the only man who ever got the top prize in the Spanish version of ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', answered one of the last questions correctly thanks to one of these jokes that he read in the comic books.

"Oh sweety, that's ok. I'm embarrassed actually; I hadn't even started yet. What do you think about chicken tonight?" Chicken was the lowest level of response.\\\

* In ''Freakonomics'', the author tells how the Ku Klux Klan used this. A klansman who went to another city and was looking for other klansmen (in a bar, for example) would ask people "Do you know a Mr Ayak?" (='''A'''re '''Y'''ou '''A K'''lansman?) The answer he expected would be "Yes, and I also know a Mr Akai." (= '''A K'''lansman '''A'''m '''I'''.) They also used many codewords by simply substituting Kl at the beginning of words, like Kloran (from Quran) for their ritual book. Which tended to sound pretty silly.

--->"Mr.Vane means there's a weather vane. Gray hair means a gray roof, and presidential refers to a white house."

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam and Dean have the codephrase "Funky Town"; Dean uses this to tell Sam he's in trouble and has a gun pointed at him.

* One of the missions in ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever'' involves exchanging these codephrases with several deep cover spies in East Germany. However, since Cate Archer, the player/protagonist, is a woman in the pre-feminist 1960's, all of the code phrases are crass come-ons from the spies and "witty" shootdowns from Cate. Most of them are at least apologetic about it.

* A few episodes of ''Series/TheCosbyShow'' sees the adults playing team-based trick-taking card games; they attempt to signal each other by using various forms of spy speak. Some, like Cliff's father Russell's, are transparent--"When I was a kid, we used to go down and play at the baseball ''diamond.''" Cliff, in a response to this, comes up with ridiculously complicated codes: for instance, he might use "pump" to indicate "heart," because a heart ''pumps'' blood. Their wives, however, are the [[WomenAreWiser true masters]] of the art--they have rapid-fire conversations which contain information so well hidden that their husbands are left completely fooled.

* Parodied in ''Film/InternationalLady'', when British agent Reggie Oliver (Creator/BasilRathbone) does not understand [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage the American slang]] used by FBI agents:
-->'''Hanley:''' This is Rah-Rah Sewell, one of our best fullbacks. Learning to be a dick. Inspector Oliver, Scotland Yard.\\
'''Sewell:''' Scotland Yard -- Gee, that sort of sends me wacky. Well, the Brain said PDQ. Better breeze in.\\
'''Oliver:''' ... He talks in code, doesn't he?
* In ''Film/SigneFurax'', an agent is ordered to enter a shop at a specified address and order lamb leg. He dutifully enters a music shop and asks for a lamb leg; the tenant immediately produces one from under his desk. A clue is written on the bone of the leg. Utterly inconspicuous.

* Partially parodied in ''Film/{{The Saint|1997}}'':
-->'''Simon:''' To Spider: You've got the recipe, where's my dough?\\
'''Tretiak:''' To Human Fly: Recipe incomplete. Cake won't rise. Hence, no dough.

* In Lawrence Block's ''Tanner's Twelve Swingers'' Evan has to go through this to enter an apparently-closed cafe in Krakow.

* Kim from ''Kipling'' has an actually smart one. You must stop before a few specific words. You must insert those words into innocent small talk, then pause before the word. Your partner must do the same with another word. "It was a nice wedding. The bride had that beautiful necklace with the great... turquoise." "Oh, how expensive. How was the food? Was there... tarkeean?"

* Lampshaded in Manning Coles' ''Drink to Yesterday'' when agent Tommy Hambledon remarks to the much younger and more naive Michael Kingston/Bill Saunders:

* In ''The Restoration Game'' by Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}, this is how Ross Stewart exchanges briefcases with his [[{{Ruritania}} Krassnian]] contact; a brief sign/countersign about cigarettes followed by a complete non sequitur just to be on the safe side.
* In Peter Benchley's ''Q Clearance'', a Soviet spy in Washington DC is supposed to receive a package from a courier. He and his handler try to come up with the appropriate Spy Speak to prove his ''bona fides''. The spy considers the handler's dialog suggestion impossibly polite for the urban neighborhood:

* Inverted in Polish s-f novel ''Paradyzja'' by Creator/JanuszZajdel. The novel depicts a [[PoliceState totalitarian state]] whose citizens use "koalang" (associative-allusive language) to mask anything that might be considered subversive by the [[StateSec secret police]], especially when speaking in public, for example:

* Often in The Resistance Trilogy by Clive Egleton, the main character would be having an innocuous discussion with someone he's apparently met at random, only for it to be revealed they're members of LaResistance when they change subject, but with no mention of what words of the conversation were the sign/countersign.

* Creator/JohnLeCarre books are full of this. Particularly ''Literature/TheQuestForKarla''.

* In Creator/MichaelInnes' ''From London Far'' the main character absently quotes a line or two of verse in a tobacconist's. When the clerk gives him a funny look he says simply "London: a Poem." and the clerk, who thinks he said "London's goin'," replies "Rotterdam's gone" and allows him entry to what turns out to be a base of operations for some rather high-class art smugglers/thieves.

* Parodied in ''International Lady'', when British agent Reggie Oliver (Creator/BasilRathbone) does not understand [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage the American slang]] used by FBI agents:

* In ''Signé Furax'', an agent is ordered to enter a shop at a specified address and order lamb leg. He dutifully enters a music shop and asks for a lamb leg; the tenant immediately produces one from under his desk. A clue is written on the bone of the leg. Utterly inconspicuous.