A hard man is good to find

What's the meaning of the phrase 'A hard man is good to find'?

A risqué comic play on words on a good man is hard to find.

What's the origin of the phrase 'A hard man is good to find'?

The Oxford Dictionary of Comic Quotations attributes this saying to Mae West (1892 – 1980). It’s certainly in her style, although I can’t find any source documentation to support the attribution. Which part of the man she preferred to be hard I’ll leave to your imagination.

Another artist who could plausibly have coined the quip was Sophie Tucker (‘The last of the red-hot mammas’), who used a good man is hard to find as her signature tune.

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Gary Martin

Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

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