
Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles - rfreytag
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ah000343.html
======
ternaryoperator
TL;DR: Most people in pre-industrial Britain slept the same number of hours we
do today, 7-8, but went to sleep earlier. Often by 9, almost all by 10.

Update suggested by comment: In addition, more people than today expected to
wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or so.

~~~
gruseom
That is not a summary of the article at all.

You've missed the most important part. Ekrich is the historian who discovered
that people's sleep used to be divided into two periods, separated by a waking
period in the middle of the night.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep>

(The Tl;DR thing is annoying on HN anyway. If it's too long for you, and you
didn't read it, there's no merit in announcing the fact.)

~~~
ternaryoperator
You're right, I should have mentioned that, although I found it far, far less
interesting than the author did. The overall impression I got from the article
is that based on lost of fragments of literature, sleeping was not that
different then from what it is today. Just earlier start time, less
comfortable, and with an expected break for some in the middle. Will update my
comment. I think a lot of people today wake up in the sleep for periods. It's
just less formalized as a part of the sleep experience.

The TL;DR is really just shorthand for "brief summary of the important stuff."
Nothing more.

~~~
epo
But you didn't give a brief summary. You gave your take on the bits you found
interesting (or possibly the bits you bothered to read) which, to the rest of
us, is worse than useless.

~~~
DenisM
It's not useless, it saved me a bunch of time.

~~~
epo
What's your point? You can save time by simply not reading, and by so doing
you remain uninformed. However a poor or slanted 'synopsis' usually serves to
misinform which, to my mind, is a disservice.

~~~
DenisM
It gave me enough to understand the general area this is about, and I moved
along for lack of interest. Also, your combative tone is not justified by the
situation.

------
JasonFruit
The writing here is horrendous. It sounds like a high school student in
scholar mode, overloaded with "whereas", "however", and other "fancy talk";
ridiculous word-order inversions; and nested subordinate clauses. If it
weren't interesting and reasonably well-researched, it would be impossible to
finish.

~~~
sbuk
Was about to post the same. This guy needs to read "Politics and the English
Language" by George Orwell
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langua...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language))
and apply the 6 rules:

1\. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used
to seeing in print.

2\. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3\. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4\. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5\. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can
think of an everyday English equivalent.

6\. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

~~~
JasonFruit
That's a great essay, and one I'm glad to have in my arsenal — I mean, glad to
be able to recommend to others.

