Sometimes in old books or documents, I read that someone had
“weak eyes”. Does it mean the person was nearsighted, or
unusually sensitive to light, or what? I guess the reason it doesn’t make much sense is that we never hear of “strong eyes”.
Hmm. I biography of Stonewall Jackson I read stated that he needed a great deal of light in order to read due to his “weak eyes”; given that I’m nearsighted and have no serious problem with lack of lighting (it’s distance, not light-flow, what does it for me), I’d assume it wasn’t near-sightedness. But it’s more a SWAG (Scientific Wild-ass Guess) than anything else.
weak eyes meant poor eyesight for any reason. One was old age.
I have another really dumb question: Why do so many people label their threads “dumb question” or “stupid question” or something like that?
And it seems to be used in a variety of contexts.
To refer to wandering eyes, nearsightedness, blurry vision and the like.
I’d suspect it just means poor or weak vision in general, and not a particular ailment.
Darn, beat me to it. 
I suspect they mean irrelevant or trivial, not realising that SDMB specialises in trivia.
I think for me “dumb questions” are usually the ones I would have thought to ask my mother when I was little enough to think parents knew everything in the world. The great thing
about the SDMB is that I can enquire of its protean, ever changing knowledge base, and get at least some kind of pointers on virtually any question. As a result, I often find myself asking questions of this type, when I otherwise wouldn’t think of it–for example, when in the vicinity of an unabridged dictionary.
If there’s something I think I should know, but don’t, I feel a little embarrassed about it. By calling a question “dumb”, I somehow feel I’m deflecting or neutralizing the scorn that I feel that others (who MUST know) must feel. So that’s irrational, or any of a lot of other adjectives - nobody says human psychology always makes sense.
IMHO, of course.
I think you will notice that, everything else being equal, brighter light will help you see better. I’m near sighted as well and notice that at dusk, it’s harder to read road signs. It’s because the brighter light causes the pupils to contract more, reducing blur. It’s the same reason why squinting your eyes or looking through a small hole helps you see btter.
Then again, wearing glasses is usually an easier solution to nearsightedness than bright lights, so I’m not sure about the answer to the OP either.
Ask a stupid question…
Yes but we end up with hundreds of threads titled “dumb question” whre it is impossible to find the one you are looking for by title.
I think something like “what was ‘weak eyesight’?” would have been more descriptive.