"It is amazing how we acquire knowledge and language and cultural concepts. I've just finished reading a book entitled, The Confessions of Lady Nijo. It is a memoir of a 12th century lady of the Japanese Imperial Court. Nijo isn't a real name but a designation of status. It means “second avenue,” which in the 12th century Japanese Imperial Court had a powerful connotation and meant the lady was a highly favored, high-ranking noble woman.

When Lady Nijo was in her late 20s, she fell out of favor, was expelled from the court and, for the next 20-30 years, lived as a traveling Buddhist nun. Because of the way she handled several abrupt and dramatic changes in her life, the unusual degree of independence and her multiple talents, I find myself mulling over her compelling story. I find one recurring phrase particularly delightful. She often refers to the impermanence of life or the transience of life–how everything changes–and this can be difficult and unsettling for those of us who cling too hard to that which inevitably must slip away.

When she refers to this piece of wisdom and the sadness or loneliness of being human that can accompany this knowledge, she writes of the tears that moisten her sleeves. Sometimes her sleeves are slightly damp; sometimes down right soggy.

I had not realized how much of this I had assimilated until I announced to a friend, "Okay, this is making my sleeves wet."

She looked utterly bewildered. Further frustrated by her lack of comprehension I curtly said, "You know? Second Avenue? Japanese Sleeves?"

My friend touched my arm with concern. "Are you kirking out?"

At which point, I fell out laughing.

I didn't realize how much “prisonese” I spoke until a few years ago when I started having to translate my sentences for my visitors, on the phone and in letters.

I've always wanted to be multilingual. While I am completely hopeless at Ebonics–"Peep them Jenks" (“look at this amazing thing”) is about the extent of my street vocabulary, I am completely fluent in “prisonese” to the extent that sometimes I can't remember which is standard English and which is prison-speak.

It reminds me of growing up in a multicultural family and learning words at home that made no sense to anyone outside the family. In the same way much has been said about the difference between British English and American English but I think each little community that develops a culture of its own–a family, a prison, a generation, a country develops a language to express mutually shared ideas. At the same time we may use the same words and not mean the same thing at all. Words that used to mean one thing now mean something quite different. An oldie but goodie example might be: “Fat” was bad, but now “phat” is good.

Contemporary prisonese is a mixture of Ebonics and old-time prison lingo (which is quite different to British prison lingo and could get your head knocked off if you misspoke yourself). General slang and individualized expressions. It's rather like the anecdote of the prisoner who would call out a number from time to time and everyone would burst out laughing (“Bust out” or “fall out” in prisonese). One of the new officers (in Britain known as a baby Roo) was unnerved by this unusual behavior and inquired as to why the prisoners acted so strangely. The sergeant replied, "Oh, they have all their best jokes memorized in order and just call out the number of the punch line."

In this way, "Motel–8"–segregation, "An Archaism"–contradictory nonsense, "A Bullet"–prison infraction, "A Kite"–illegal communication, "Freaking a Black" –a method of rolling a cigarette, "Automatic Words"–curse words, "Slow Moving Vehicles"–slow walkers and many other phrases come into the prison vernacular. Surprisingly even in our apparently stagnated lives, the language fluctuates, the language grows and shifts with new words, phrases and connotations.

Trying to maintain my vocabulary is enough to make my sleeves damp." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, January 26, 2006).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'