In recent months, we’ve expanded our vocabulary about connections with others. There are policies of social distancing and quarantine, and concerns about loneliness and social isolation.
Even before the pandemic, we were reading about rising numbers of singletons, our declining ability to enjoy solitude, and a looming loneliness epidemic.
What does each of these terms mean? “Quarantine,” for example, comes from the Latin for forty, which was the number of days that ships arriving in medieval Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor before unloading.
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