What did this sentence mean?

[Polyester]

"He was, Samantha thought, being deliberately obtuse, no doubt in retaliation for her refusal to go to Sweetlove House."
What did this sentence mean?

 

[Matthew Wai]

Samantha thought he retaliated by being deliberately obtuse.

Not a teacher.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Where did you find that sentence?

 

[Polyester]

This sentence is captured from "The casual vacancy".

 

[emsr2d2]

This sentence is [STRIKE]captured[/STRIKE] taken from "The Casual Vacancy".

Remember to capitalise book titles correctly.

 

[Polyester]

What did this sentence mean?

 

[SoothingDave]

Which word don't you understand?

 

[probus]

I suspect it was not a word but the grammatical complexity.

Samantha thought he was being deliberately obtuse, in retaliation for her refusal to go to Sweetlove House.

Is that any clearer, Polyester?

 

[probus]

Samantha thought he retaliated by being deliberately obtuse.

Not a teacher.

Yes, but there is also the question of why she did so.

 

[Polyester]

If I omit being, the meaning is same as before?

 

[Matthew Wai]

If I omit being, the meaning is same as before?

I take 'he was being deliberately obtuse' to mean 'he was deliberately obtuse just then but not always'.

Not a teacher.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's true that the sentence only refers to this particular occasion but we don't know that he isn't always deliberately obtuse. We are given the specific reason for it this time.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I think that word "deliberately" suggests that this was not always the case.

 

[bhaisahab]

I think that word "deliberately" suggests that this was not always the case.

Perhaps he was always deliberately obtuse.

 

[Polyester]

I still can't understand as follow:
"deliberately obtuse"
Does he deliberate to refuse to go to the house?

 

[Matthew Wai]

'Deliberately obtuse' means “故意装傻” in your native language..
Samantha was the one who refused to go to the house.

Not a teacher.

 

[probus]

"Does he deliberate to refuse to go to the house? "

No. "He was deliberately obtuse" means "he chose to be stupid."

 

[Matthew Wai]

The Chinese phrase in my post#16 above was quoted from the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (the 8th edition). It literally means 'deliberately pretending to be stupid'.

Not a teacher.

 

[emsr2d2]

The OP needs to understand the meaning of the adverb "deliberately". It means to do something wilfully, on purpose, not accidentally. Whilst the words are, of course, connected, it doesn't mean that he "deliberated on it" before acting. That suggests that he spent a reasonable period of time thinking about it before he did it. We don't always think carefully about something before deliberately doing it.