scarcely

scarcely

1. The standard construction is scarcely…when…:

• Scarcely had he begun when Claverhouse ordered him to rise —A. Boyle, 1990.

The construction with than, though increasingly common and perhaps suggested by the analogy of no sooner…than…, is non-standard:

• ☒ But scarcely had he begun to investigate these new, if somewhat less adventurous, hunting-grounds, than the entire party was ‘summoned back to Hobarton by Sir John’ —I. Tree, 1991.

A construction with a following comparative adjective or adverb is however acceptable:

• There could scarcely be a less promising environment for an amphibian than the desert of central Australia —David Attenborough, 1988

• The difficulty of putting to rights two of the wrongs affecting children's education could scarcely be better illustrated than through the dilemma facing teachers over problem pupils —Western Daily Press, 2000.

2. Scarcely, like barely and hardly, has a negative force without being grammatically negative, and another negative should be avoided in the same sentence unless it is in a following subordinate clause:

• There is scarcely an aspect of the race that is not rife with meaning —New Yorker, 1989.