It rarely amounts to much (though when it does the consequences are terrible).
Be that as it may, Liverpool's answer to the two-card trick rarely amounted to anything other than a rather desultory game of snap.
Many restaurants big up garden plots which rarely amount to more than an old bath planted with some knackered chives and rocket that bolted three weeks ago.
In "Appointment in Samarra," there was nothing about Julian English that we did not know and want to know, but Grace Caldwell Tate is a fatally uninteresting woman, and her rage to live rarely amounts to more than pique.
The New York Philharmonic has long done this with its Composer Focus programs, which rarely amount to more than a few of a contemporary composer's works spread through a season.
But this rarely amounted to what lawmakers like to call "vigorous oversight"; in the Bush administration, in fact, the surveillance court and the oversight committees were intentionally bypassed on the most sensitive programs.
Tuition fees for locals at state universities may have crept higher, but they rarely amount to a quarter of the $25,000 or so a year charged by the cream of the private sector.
The ARPU associated with new devices such as e-readers, many of which use AT&T's wireless network, rarely amounts to more than a few dollars a month.
But it has been carefully drawn to excuse the role the politicians themselves have played in undermining democracy, by using mandates won at the polls to establish governments that rarely amounted to much more than vehicles for personal enrichment, or for pursuing vendettas against political foes.
In lieu of scripted presentations and market-tested messages, Mr. Santorum's preparation on the stump rarely amounted to more than having Chuck Laudner, a top aide to Representative Steve King of Iowa, described by Republican insiders as a "secret weapon," literally in the driver's seat briefing the candidate on the issues he would confront at his next appearance.
