The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2010) and Gentleman Jack (2019–2022) are both television dramas based on the private journals of Anne Lister (1791–1840). The diaries were not only partly written in code but make use of idiosyncratic terms, and  the two adaptations deal in different ways with the language used in the diaries. This essay examines the language of Anne Lister’s diaries and compares their two adaptations, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister and Gentleman Jack, with a particular focus on the use of queer vocabulary. © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.