[Candy] "That's the boss's son," he said quietly. "Curley's
pretty handy. He done quite a bit in the ring. He's a lightweight, and he's handy.""Well, let him be handy," said George. "He don't have to take
after Lennie. Lennie didn't do nothing to him. What's he got against Lennie?"Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck
The adjective “handy" usually refers to something conveniently near, a useful object or someone skilful with their hands but in this instance it seems that handy refers to someone who is prone to using physical violence. We learn that Curley is a bit of a boxer “He done quite a bit in the ring”, so he knows how to throw a punch and defend himself in a fight.
Online some sites suggest that handy denotes physical strength, and some suggest that Curley is skilful in picking fights.
However, none of the dictionaries I checked; The American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), Oxford Dictionaries (EOD), Collins (CED), and Cambridge Dictionary (CD) tell me that handy refers to a an aggressive person who uses their fists or hands. In Italian the term manesco , which is derived from the noun mano (hand), refers to someone who is quick to use their hands in a violent manner. For example, a mother who slaps her children is una mamma manesca, and a husband who beats his wife is un marito manesco.
I'm guessing this is an example of semantic shifting but I have never come across this secondary meaning before.
-
Am I mistaken? Do the three instances of "handy" in the excerpt above refer to Curley as being skilled with his hands. Was it meant to be ironic?
-
Is it an example of American dialectal usage? Is it an example of Candy's idiolect?
-
What would have been the the standard American English equivalent of handy, meaning a person inclined to physical violence, in the 1930s?
Best Answer
Steinbeck seems to be using handy in the conversation as a truncated form of the idiomatic phrase "handy with his fists," meaning in a narrow sense "a good pugilist [in a formal boxing match]" and in a broader sense "a good fighter [in any physical altercation]." This is certainly the conclusion that a reviewer of Of Mice and Men, writing in 1937, draws in his brief description of Curley. From Fred T. Marsh, "John Steinbeck's Tale of Drifting Men," in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art (February 28, 1937), reprinted in Michael Meyer, ed., The Essential Criticism of John Steinbeck's of Mice and Men (2009):
Although "handy with [one's] fists" doesn't appear in Christine Ammer's American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, it is a widely used and recognized set phrase in the United States and perhaps in Great Britain as well (where it probably originated). Here is the Ngram chart for "handy with his fists" for the period 1850–2005:
As you can see, the expression was most popular during the half-century from about 1910 to about 1960, but it has by no means disappeared in more-recent decades.
A Google Books search finds instances going back to 1833 (in England) in the narrower sense and to 1858 (in a U.S. publication, but by an author who spent considerable time in both the U.S. and England) in the broader sense.
From "A Trip to Paris with Mr. Jorrocks," in The New Sporting Magazine (June 1833):
From Nimrod's Hunting Tours, Interspersed with Characteristic Anecdotes, Sayings, and Doings of Sporting Men (1835):
From "January Searle" [George Searle Phillips], Myra, the Gipsy Prophetess, serialized in Frank Leslie's New Family Magazine (May 1858):
And from Jack Hyfligher, M.D., and What He Did, serialized in Yankee Notions (April 1859):