Saeed Najmi Mar 3, 2021:

Literally, استحنق , means got infuriated/mad/enraged and whatever other attribute that suggests extreme anger. Contextually, given the writer's tendency to get into detailed descriptions, which he didn't do in this case and, given that the narrator and probably his entire family are likely everyday customers, the shop-keeper couldn't have gotten into a fit. Hence, an adjective that expresses reasonable anger should suffice. I opted for ''upset''. As for translation within context that Linda mentions, I guess that she makes a point there regardless of generation of author.

Linda Al-Bairmani Mar 3, 2021:

Played/acted dumb I am only guessing the narrator is saying the shop keeper is pretending to be dumb, to avoid replacing the item. Mind you, judging by your questions, the book was written recently, and we cannot assume that today's authors are sticking to the rules and do's and don't's of the language. You translate based on a context not a dictionary entry.

Saeed Najmi Mar 3, 2021:

Absolutely Hassan. That is why Mona came up with her suggestion based on the assumption that it is transitive استحمق فلان فلانا considered him to be foolish.

Verity Roat (asker) Mar 3, 2021:

العم علي الشاكر refers to one person.

Hassan Achahbar Mar 3, 2021:

Could you provide more context and clarify whether العم علي الشاكر refers to one or two people, because استحمق can be both transitive and intransitive

https://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar/استحمق/
• استحمق الشَّخصُ حمُق؛ قلّ عقلُه وتصرَّف تصرُّف الطائش.
• استحمق فلانًا: أحمقه؛ عدَّه قليل العَقْلِ طائشه :-حدَّثتُه فاستحمقتُه.

My guess is العم علي الشاكر is one person, and the verb is intransitive, meaning he went crazy, lost his temper

Saeed Najmi Mar 3, 2021:

You may want to add any additional relevant context that would help with the translation if any of course.

Saeed Najmi Mar 3, 2021:

The spelling looks ok, it may be a case of wrong derivative from the stem