Mr Brown likes to give the impression that he has saved the country from rampant inflation, even though it was scarcely racing when he took office.

ECONOMIST: Singing in the rain

Bill Gates was scarcely past puberty when he started Microsoft.

FORBES: BOOM INTERRUPTUS

He started reviewing books for the New Republic in 1933 and became that magazine's film critic in 1934, at a time when scarcely anyone else in America was writing regularly about movies.

WSJ: Otis Ferguson: A Film and Jazz Critic Still Waiting for His Due | Sightings By Terry Teachout

The richness of the West Africa play was scarcely obvious when Musselman began looking at Triton as a possible takeover target in 1997.

FORBES: One Tamed Wildcat

Her "Virginia Woolf" is so precisely gauged in both timing and tone that you'll scarcely notice the moment at the end of the first act when comedy suddenly gives way to horror.

WSJ: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Still Shocking After All These Years | Theater Review by Terry Teachout