The Author

Larry Paros has worked extensively in the field of Education and Human services both as a teacher and administrator for more than 25 years, during which time he has interacted extensively with young people from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds in both urban and suburban contexts.

At Yale University he headed up a unique project for talented students from poverty backgrounds. In Providence, R.I. he created and directed two experimental schools which gained widespread recognition. Cited by the U.S. Office of Education as "exemplary," they were replicated at more than 125 sites nationwide.

Under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Labor, he later supervised the development of a nationwide network of neighborhood-based inner city group homes for "at-risk" youth, designed and directed a special action-research project for Boston inner-city schools. He later directed an inner city anti-poverty agency, the centerpiece of which was an innovative community center for appropriate technology.

On a college level, he has trained teachers and helped design and implemented a unique college program for community based para-professionals where he also taught courses in the creation of alternative settings, social change, and administration and finance for non-profits.

Paros is a former op-ed page columnist for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and commentator on KUOW-FM, the NPR affiliate in Seattle. A recognized authority on language, his published works include The Great American Cliché (Workman); The Erotic Tongue (Madrona and Holt), A Word with You America (Kvetch Press) Bawdy Language (Kvetch Press), and a children's book, Smashcaps, (Avon).

His most recent creative works include two films: The Journey, an immigrant's trek to America and Walk Right In, the story of the Yale Summer High School. He has written regularly on the Huffington Post and currently hosts insomanywords.net, a unique approach to the study of words and word origins using a comic book format.