Whereas in American English a celly is a cellmate in prison, outside the United States it can be slang for a cell phone. Watching people leave their cells and get cell phones can be disconcerting. A former prisoner released in the early 2020s asked a reasonable question about his new iPhone: “How do I get this thing away from my face?” Another formerly incarcerated person I know, a man about my age, began his sentence in the twentieth century, well before smartphones were invented. When he was released after twenty-six years, he was troubled by the spectacle of people staring at the little
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