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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 30. The word origin today is

  • quarantine. Okay. Let's take a look at the note. A quarantine is a situation in

  • which people and animals that are suspected of having a disease are kept

  • apart from other people or animals for a period of time. So the disease is not

  • spread. Of course, you've probably heard this. You know of course, any of the big

  • diseases that went around like SARS or chicken flu or whatever or Bird Flu years

  • ago. You've seen that some people were quarantined for a short while especially

  • like at the airport or or whatever. So this is the origin of this word. All right.

  • Let's continue. The origin of quarantine goes all the way back to the 14th

  • century in Europe when the Black Plague spread throughout all of Europe killing

  • off 30% of the European population. Yeah. I remember reading about that. That's

  • amazing that it really had such an effect that it actually killed off 30%

  • of the population back in those days. Today, we get nervous a few hundred

  • people die of a disease. This knocked off 30 percent of the entire population.

  • Let's continue. In order to try to control the spread of the disease in

  • Venice, Italy, they forced ships to be in isolation for

  • 40 days before allowing anyone on board to leave the ship. In Italian, it was

  • referred to as quaranta , quaranta giorni. All right. That means 40 days in Italian. So

  • quaranta ,quaranta is 40 and giorni is days. So , so now you can see where the

  • beginning of the word comes from. It comes from ...quarantine came from quaranta,

  • quarenta in Italian meaning 40. All right. Let's continue. There are documents that

  • prove the original period of.... a period of time the passengers had to stay on the

  • ship was 30 days, and it was called trentine.

  • Okay. Yeah I think they started at 30 then they extended it to 40. You know,

  • because I guess they wanted to be even safer. So they took the tine in

  • trentine . Okay. Together with the quaranta in 40. And here's where we

  • got quarantine. This is where quarantine came from. Okay. So the modern word formed

  • from quaranta in 40 and the tine in Trentine is probably how they pronounced

  • it in Italian at that time. So now you know this is where quarantine actually

  • originally came from. Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for

  • your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 30. The word origin today is

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