“Stupidly obstinate” is a root-cause analysis of obstinate behavior. Like an alternative root cause might be conflict, for instance.
At first glance, your linked document seems to match this. The herald who calls the printer “pig-headed” does so in direct connection with calling him “dull”, which at least in modern terms would be considered a way of calling him stupid? Or maybe I’m missing some of the nuances due to not knowing the older terms/not reading your entire document?
At first glance, your linked document seems to match this. The herald who calls the printer “pig-headed” does so in direct connection with calling him “dull”, which at least in modern terms would be considered a way of calling him stupid?
Not necessarily. ‘Dull’ can mean, in 1621 just as well as 2025, plenty of other things: eg “Causing depression or ennui; tedious, uninteresting, uneventful; the reverse of exhilarating or enlivening.” (OED example closest in time: “Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?”—Jonson’s good friend & fellow playwright, William Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (1623)); or, “Of persons, or their mood: Having the natural vivacity or cheerfulness blunted; having the spirits somewhat depressed; listless; in a state approaching gloom, melancholy, or sadness: the opposite of lively or cheerful.” (Shakespeare again: “Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue / But moodie and dull melancholly?”) Which in the context of a ‘dull’ tradesman who refuses to hear the exciting news being brought by no less than 2 heralds before he knows ‘the price’, is sensible enough.
not reading your entire document?
That would certainly help, because if you read the rest of the Printer’s rather cynical comments, constantly undermining the heralds, he doesn’t sound in the slightest bit like he is supposed to be stupid or retarded—as opposed to a curmodgeonly critic constantly—obstinately, even—throwing water on a good time by sardonically remarking that he makes money by changing the dates on newspaper plates to print the old news as new news or mocking their talk of moonlight by noting that his telescope-maker has brought him moonshine before. (Not that printers, like Benjamin Franklin, were an occupation associated with low intelligence to begin with.)
“Stupidly obstinate” is a root-cause analysis of obstinate behavior. Like an alternative root cause might be conflict, for instance.
At first glance, your linked document seems to match this. The herald who calls the printer “pig-headed” does so in direct connection with calling him “dull”, which at least in modern terms would be considered a way of calling him stupid? Or maybe I’m missing some of the nuances due to not knowing the older terms/not reading your entire document?
Not necessarily. ‘Dull’ can mean, in 1621 just as well as 2025, plenty of other things: eg “Causing depression or ennui; tedious, uninteresting, uneventful; the reverse of exhilarating or enlivening.” (OED example closest in time: “Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?”—Jonson’s good friend & fellow playwright, William Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (1623)); or, “Of persons, or their mood: Having the natural vivacity or cheerfulness blunted; having the spirits somewhat depressed; listless; in a state approaching gloom, melancholy, or sadness: the opposite of lively or cheerful.” (Shakespeare again: “Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue / But moodie and dull melancholly?”) Which in the context of a ‘dull’ tradesman who refuses to hear the exciting news being brought by no less than 2 heralds before he knows ‘the price’, is sensible enough.
That would certainly help, because if you read the rest of the Printer’s rather cynical comments, constantly undermining the heralds, he doesn’t sound in the slightest bit like he is supposed to be stupid or retarded—as opposed to a curmodgeonly critic constantly—obstinately, even—throwing water on a good time by sardonically remarking that he makes money by changing the dates on newspaper plates to print the old news as new news or mocking their talk of moonlight by noting that his telescope-maker has brought him moonshine before. (Not that printers, like Benjamin Franklin, were an occupation associated with low intelligence to begin with.)