Thread: Die Hard

Please help me to understand native point of view at this idiom and feeling of it.
Of course in relation with movie too.
I have some dispute about it with non-natives and we cannot finish it.

First of all, if we google "die hard idiom" we got set of phrases about "ideas/beliefs die hard". They translates to russian 1-to-1. Ok.
Also we can find in wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_hard_(phrase) that seems to be close to the movie name: person who will not be swayed from a belief.
However dictionaries mention this meaning only as "diehard" or "die-hard", that is words are not divided by space. But movie name has space between them...

So, that is the true perception of this name of movie for the natives?
Maybe space is here to mix up meanings and create wordplay? Can it be understood also as command "die in agony" or something?

P.S.
By the way, russian translators translated movie name as another idiom that exists in russian too: "a hard nut to crack" - "крепкий орешек".

"Diehard" and "die-hard" can be used as adjectives or nouns; they can refer to a person with an unwavering belief, or describe either the person or the belief, as in "diehard fan" or "diehard fascism". The movie title instead refers to the act of "dying hard", perhaps to indicate the instance of a person or idea being diehard - difficult to put a stop to, as the idiom implies. It is not to be understood as a command. (Умереть вм. умри).

That is, wiki is wrong (last sentence of article)?

It is not wrong, but there is an important difference between the word "die-hard"/"diehard" and the phrase "die hard", the latter being used in the movie title in association with a certain English idiom. One example, "old habits die hard", speaks of long-time behaviors being hard to stop (hard to cause to die ). Similarly, the character John McClane turns out to be a pretty doughty fellow, so the people trying to kill him have a hard time doing so. Thus, if he is ever to die in the story, he shall die hard.

Well, thank you!
I have found link that says the same thing and explains some things in more details than wiki.

Despite his injuries, Inglis refused to retire from the battle but remained with the regimental colours, encouraging his men with the words "Die hard 57th, die hard!" as they came under intense pressure from a French attack. The 'Die Hards' subsequently became the West Middlesex’s regimental nickname

Somehow I`ve never had any confusion with that. Russian movie title ("Крепкий Орешек") is pretty good.

But I stumble on other phrases like "Suffer well" and still don`t get it 100%.


Just hang on. Suffer well. Sometimes it's hard...