VOA原文
In human history, the spread of infectious diseases to mass numbers of people is not uncommon.
Pandemics, historians say, started when we humans began farming land and living in communities.
Pandemics increased as trade between communities and nations increased.
From smallpox to influenza to the plague, there was often no medical treatment to prevent or cure these diseases.
Take for example, the plague that hit Europe in the 14th century. It is also known as the "Black Death."
With no medical prevention available, isolating the sick was the only effective public health defense.
With many other pandemics, the best chance at prevention was to keep sick people away from healthy people. This is called a quarantine.
And that is our word for today.
Word experts at Merriam-Webster explain that the word "quarantine" has both French and Italian influences.
In the late 1400s, English speakers borrowed the French wordquarantaine which means "a period of about 40 days." Quarante is the wordfor the number 40 (forty) in French.
At that time, quarantaine had a religious meaning. Some word experts say it refers to the period of time Jesus spent fasting -- going without food -- in the desert.
However, over time, people began using it for more than just religious situations.
For example, it referred to the delay of putting a legal agreement in place. In the early 1500s, quarantine also was used to describe a "period of 40 days in which a widow has the right to remain in her dead husband's house."
Around the same time, other city-states in Europe were also using a similar word -- quarantena.
This word was used to mean the "isolation of a ship to protect the port city from potential disease."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains on its website that "quarantine was first introduced in 1377 on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast."
By the 1600s, English speakers began using quarantena to mean "isolation as protection from disease."
As the French form of this word (quarantaine) was already being used, English kept it but gave it a new meaning.
It was now an English word based on French spelling -- with an Italian definition and Latin roots.
In North America in the late 1600s, quarantine was introduced to control yellow fever. The CDC says this was the case in New York(1688) and in Boston (1691).
That's the word history. Now, let's talk about how to use"quarantine" in a sentence.
For starters, it is both a noun and a verb.
As a noun, we often use it after the preposition "under." If someone is under quarantine, they are required to physically keep away from others.
For example: "When she was under quarantine, the woman learned how to play the piano and speak simple Russian."
The word "quarantine" is often combined with other nouns. In the news and from government announcements you may read about, quarantine guidelines, quarantine authority and quarantine systems.
As a verb, we can say that some young people in the United States are not fully self-quarantining themselves.
So, isolation and quarantine are both ways to help protect the public. They both prevent exposure to people who have or may have a contagious disease.
And that is all the time we have for this Words and Their Stories. Until next time ... I'm Anna Matteo!
满满de知识点
quarantine美 [ˈkwɔːrəntiːn]
pandemic 美 [pænˈdemɪk]
n. medical : anoccurrence in which a disease spreads very quickly and affects a large numberof people over a wide area or throughout the world
contagious
美 [kənˈteɪdʒəs]
adj. having a sickness that can be passed to someone else by touching
参考译文
在人类历史上，传染病在大量人群中传播的情况并不罕见。历史学家说，当我们人类开始耕种土地并在社区中生活时，大流行就开始了。随着社区和国家之间贸易的增加，流行病也在增加。从天花到流行性感冒再到鼠疫，人们常常没有医疗手段来预防或治愈这些疾病。以14世纪欧洲的瘟疫为例。它也被称为“黑死病”。在没有医疗预防的情况下，隔离病人是唯一有效的公共卫生防御措施。与许多其它流行病一样，预防的最佳机会是让病人远离健康人。这叫做隔离。这就是我们今天要学的单词。韦氏词典的词汇专家解释说，“检疫”这个词受法语和意大利语的影响。在15世纪后期，说英语的人借用了法语单词quarantaine，意思是“大约40天的时期”。Quarante是法语中表示数字40(40)的单词。当时，quarantaine有宗教意义。一些词汇专家说，它指的是耶稣在沙漠中禁食的时间限制。然而，随着时间的推移，人们开始把它用于宗教以外的场合。例如，它指的是法律协定迟迟不能落实。在16世纪早期，检疫也被用来描述“寡妇有权在亡夫家居住40天的期限。”大约在同一时期，欧洲其他城市国家也在使用类似的词——quarantena。这个词被用来表示“隔离船只以保护港口城市免受潜在疾病的侵袭”。美国疾病控制与预防中心在其网站上解释说，“隔离最早于美国疾病控制与预防中心在其网站上解释说，“隔离最早于1377年在克罗地亚的达尔马提亚海岸pandemic到了17世纪，说英语的人开始用quarantena来表示“隔离以预防疾病”。由于这个词的法语形式(quarantaine)已经被使用，因此英语保留了这个单词，但赋予了它新的含义。它现在是一个基于法语拼写的英语单词，有一个意大利的定义和拉丁语的词根。在17世纪晚期的北美，隔离被引入以控制黄热病。疾控中心表示，(688年的纽约和1691年的波士顿都是这种情况。这就是这个单词的历史。现在，让我们讨论一下如何在句子中使用“quarantine”。首先，它既是名词又是动词。作为名词，我们经常把它放在介词“under”之后。如果有人被隔离，就必须同他人保持物理距离。例如:“当她被隔离的时候，她学会了弹钢琴和简单的俄语。”“quarantine”一词常与其他名词连用。你可以从新闻和政府公告中了解到隔离指南、隔离机构和隔离体系。作为动词，我们可以说美国的一些年轻人没有完全自我隔离。因此，isolation和quarantine都是有助于保护公众的方法。它们都能防止接触到患有或可能患有传染病的人。以上就是本期词汇掌故节目的全部内容。下次见
大量干货戳这个哦 微信公众号: LE_77RABBIT （ 刨土兔子的英语花园 ）
用户评论