Abstract
Bogspeak [or code] was a little known argot developed by a crimialised community of men who used public toilets for same sex encounters in New Zealand. The language form subsumed into itself elements of prison cant, pig Latin, back slang, Polari, gay slang and localised dialect.
Using a chronological framework this paper discusses changes in bogspeak that ran parallel to changes in the architecture of public toilets, legislation relating to issues of privacy and homosexuality, and social attitudes prevalent in New Zealand society up until the close of the1960s.
