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In the fourth episode of Sons of Anarchy's second season, there is a scene where Bobby is wearing chaps and all the guys are making fun of him. Then he says:

Cowhide can take the man-hide.

I can't figure what it means! I would appreciate it if someone would explain the meaning.

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On a site concerned with the English language, the least that you can do is to capitalise your sentences. – coleopterist Aug 20 '12 at 16:53
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In context, Bobby is probably referring to himself as "cowhide" (since he's the one wearing a lot of it). And by analogy, he's refering to all the other people as "man-hide". Note that "I can take you!" is "fighting talk" meaning "I can defeat you in a fight!". So he's probably telling them all to stop laughing at him, or he'll fight and defeat them all. But the question is Too Localised anyway, since none of this usage is part of normal spoken English. – FumbleFingers Aug 20 '12 at 16:54

closed as too localized by FumbleFingers, kiamlaluno, Tom Au, MετάEd, tchrist Aug 26 '12 at 15:20

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1 Answer

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Basically, he's saying that his chaps are tough enough to handle being made fun of:

The chaps are made of leather, which is made from the skin ("hide", noun: the pelt or skin of a larger animal) of a cow.

To "be able to take (something)" is to be capable of resisting the abuse involved in whatever the (something) is.

The abuse that is being taken is a "man-hide" ("hide", verb: to administer a beating; used figuratively here), i.e. the teasing that the guys are giving him.

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