I would like to clarify a number of points which appeared in an obituary about Professor Larry Trask (The Argus, April 8).

Professor Trask, an international authority on linguistics, did not leave the University of Sussex to go on research leave in 1998.

He received the accolade of a two-year Leverhulme Fellowship from Autumn 2001 and until early November 2003, he was still working at the university full-time.

Although the books mentioned in the obituary are much admired in the academic world, he is probably best known as the author of the Penguin Guide To Punctuation and Mind The Gaffe.

His first book was published in 1993 after he joined Sussex.

It was while he was at the University of Liverpool, not Sussex, that he was a tutor in halls. That was also where his games collection and games evenings were renowned.

Although he was a huge fan of baseball, it was as a spectator, not a player.

He did not undertake an undergraduate course in linguistics at the Polytechnic of Central London. He took a one-year evening course and proved to be so good at it that he was asked to teach the course the following year.

Finally, he served in the Peace Corps in Turkey, not the Middle East.

-Jacqui Bealing, press officer, University of Sussex