We barely learn how to pronounce the name of a Russian shot-putter or a Greek weight lifter, then we hear the massive click of a medal going back into the box.
"The kids barely learn anything; they're watching number videos, listening to reggaeton and coloring," Davidson said.
Rachel Cusk's Outline and Transit are helmed by a deadpan listener whose name we barely learn, and the books consist almost entirely of the narratives of other people.
When you're that tall and you're in that body and you've just barely learned how to lift weights, it's hard.
What's more, it's clear our elected officials seem to have barely learned anything from the Iraq war despite all this.
We had barely learned of the attack before talking heads began to expound on Middle East policies and the words administration officials used, or should have used, to uphold our national dignity.
The scandal at the 92nd Street Y Nursery School — an institution that anxious plutocratic parents in New York City believe will facilitate their progeny's acceptance to Harvard and teach toddler barons social-climbing skills when they have barely learned to walk — is a reminder of how far a C.E.O. will go to keep a valued employee happy.
The three male actors, their scripts and sheet music clutched tightly, had barely learned the melody of the first song when they were asked to absorb harmonies, blocking and dance steps, all of it being invented on the fly by the director, Lisa Peterson ("An Iliad"), and the music director, Lance Horne.
She had barely learned to remember Jordan's name before he was gone, trundled off to a Job Corps assignment in Houston, and now here was Paul, at thirteen years old a little younger than his unmet foster brother once removed, and just as bad with the tambourine.
In a memoir (translated by Hardie St. Martin), he writes movingly about an event that might have set in motion his decision, as a teen-ager, to adopt a pseudonym: Once, far back in my childhood, when I had barely learned to read, I felt an intense emotion and set down a few words, half rhymed but strange to me, different from everyday language.
The tribute to an ailing Dick Clark on the 50th anniversary of "American Bandstand" was more brisk than maudlin: the television impresario received a standing ovation when he appeared, his voice slurred, at the microphone and made a joke about being asked to take the stage when he had barely learned to walk again after his last stroke.
