Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ah000343.html

by rfreytag • 14 years ago

48 11 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.)

ternaryoperator2• 14 years ago

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.

rackman171• 14 years ago

Agreed with your update. A better treatment than this post re what the history of segmented sleep means for us today is presented in this article, which just appeared in the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-...

JasonFruit2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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...) 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.

JasonFruit2• 14 years ago

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.

Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles

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