Midweek reading

• Talking on the phone might be messing with your head. "One recent study interviewed pedestrians who had just walked along a 375-foot path across an open plaza where a clown on a unicycle was riding around. Only 2 out of 24 cell phone users reported seeing the clown." I guess this is why I feel the need to give people play-by-play when I'm on the phone with them in the car.

• Call Abdulmutallab the Undiebomber. Interesting, especially for those who feel society needs to bury the psychopath mystique.

• Where love-light comes from.

• Stop using being verbs.

• This doesn't have much to do with language, but here's what the guy who dubbed Gilbert Arenas "Agent Zero" thinks about that whole mess.

• Semicolons in civil service.