Look out for the different uses of yet in the article
Has it started raining yet? Well maybe not just yet, but perhaps you should put your sunglasses away and get your umbrella out, because yesterday was the start of Wimbledon!
Wimbledon – Is it raining yet?
For the next fortnight, the world will be watching this little corner of South West London as the world’s premier tennis tournament takes place.
If you are studying at SGI over the next 2 weeks and you haven’t got a Wimbledon ticket yet, there is a very slim chance that you might be able to get one if you join the long queue to get in every morning (or go and queue up in the evening when there are less people). Beware – there are 40,000 visitors every day.
Anyway, if you do get in, you’ll get the chance to buy the traditional Wimbledon food of a punnet of strawberries and cream for around £10, or something ridiculous like that – it’s daylight robbery.
Andy Murray, the Scot, who is seeded 4th for the tournament, will be looking to go one better than his semi-final appearance last year. He got to the final of the 2010 US Open, has won minor tournaments like Queen’s and has been the World No#4 for some time and yet he hasn’t won a grand-slam tournament. This hasn’t stopped the media bigging him up though.
As always at this time of year, the English press whip themselves up into a frenzy about the prospect of a British victory at Wimbledon: the last one being Fred Perry in 1936. But for Murray, winning this year will be his most difficult job yet, as Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic are all in sparkling form.
I’m just watching a report from Wimbledon on the TV right now and it looks quite sunny and the grey clouds haven’t arrived yet. However, bad weather is forecast and it’s a certainty that the covers will have to be used at some point to protect the precious Wimbledon grass from downpours. Centre court has a secret weapon though: a £100m retractable roof! It was opened in 2009 to counteract the unpredictable British weather and reduce the number of interruptions or delays to the tournament and yet it has hardly been used since being built due to 2 very good years of sunshine.
However, if you believe what the weathermen say about the rainfall for Wimbledon 2011, the best is yet to come!
WHEN DO YOU USE ‘YET’???
1.Yet is not normally used in positive sentences (but also see point 5 below).
The normal use is in questions and negative sentences. Notice that ‘yet’ normally comes at the end of the clause.
(+ve) I’ve already bought a ticket
(-ve) I haven’t bought a ticket yet
( ? ) Have you bought a ticket yet?
2. In a negative sentence, ‘not yet’ means that something that is expected but not happened at this moment.
My packet from Amazon.co.uk hasn’t arrived yet.
This also has a feeling of looking towards the future.
Andy Murray hasn’t won a Grand-Slam tournament yet. (He is good enough to win one, and we are hoping that he will do soon)
3. In a question, ‘yet’ is thinking about the past, up to the present and shows that the speaker does not know the answer. Compare this with ‘already’
Have you seen Big Ben yet? (I don’t know if you have been there or not)
Have you already seen Big Ben? (I think that you probably have been there)
4. To make a contrast, ‘yet’ can be used to say that something is surprising when you think about what has just been said
Murray is the World No#4 and has been playing incredible tennis all year and yet he hasn’t won a major tournament.
5. ‘Yet’ can also be used after a superlative to mean ‘up until now’
This will be Murray’s hardest job yet.
