_Hardleg_, UD 2006:

[Wilson Gray]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 11:58 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> More specifically, 'any man or boy, esp. if tough'. Along with a
>> second one for 'an ugly or debauched woman; a hardened prostitute'.
>> Two Black English lexicons are cited that converge on the disjunction
>> 'any man or an ugly woman'.

In the day in StL, _hardleg_ was also used to refer to so-called
"female impersonators" or male transvestites. My WAG, then and now, is
that the reference was to their unusually muscular, by feminine
standards, legs. I WAG further that _hardleg_ wasn't used *at all* as
a term of address because of the connection with (assumed)
homosexuality. (Needless to say, etymological discussion was
non-occurrent.) You could call up ("hollering at" folk was something
that only mothers did, in those days) one of your handlers and ask,
"What's happening, nigger?" but not "What's happening, hardleg?"

The above WAG's are strictly that. Back in those days, I also WAG'ed
that there must be some etymological connection between _cunt_ and
_cock_, since they have a single, precisely-identical meaning and they
both start with [kV-]. There is a connection of course, but it isn't
etymological.;-) I *still* feel a little queasy, trying to reconcile
_cock_ with "penis.")

Because the 'hood in StL was divided geographically into two
separate-but-equally-unequal parts: Downtown, seat of the infamous
Pruitt-Igoe Projects and the home of skankage, 99.44% black, and the
West End, still about 75% white in my day (today's hip-hoppers rap
about locations that I know only from maps!), I can't even WAG whether
those applications of _hardleg_ that I'm not familiar with - anything
having to do with actual women; indeed, girls were occasionally
referred to as _softlegs_, or with bad motherfuckers as opposed to
_punks_ - was true for all of black StL.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org