Does the collocation "to have a bad sleep" exist? [closed]
Does the collocation "to have a bad sleep" exist? For example, will it be grammaticaly correct if I use it in the sentence "He had a bad sleep last night and was not able to wake up on time"?
No, the normal way to say this is "He slept badly last night." I have never heard the construction "to have a bad sleep", and I don't think a native speaker would ever use it.
Edited to add: user121863's answer has convinced me that this construction is now being used by (presumably) native speakers. I am surprised, but I must accept the evidence.
Though not a common collocation, to have a bad sleep, (on the calque of “have a good sleep“) appears to show increasing usage instances from the ‘90s, at least according to Google Books. The more common expression, though, is “to sleep badly”.
See some usage examples here