Sayings

[DarnT]

From whence does the saying..."waiting on you hand and foot," come?

Thanks

[Quizmonster]

There is a 14th century reference that reads "...served them to hand and foot", but it is not until the end of the 19th century that the following sentence appeared in writing: "They expect to be waited on hand and foot."
The basic phrase 'hand and foot; had of course been used many times prior to those, as in biblical references to someone being bound 'hand and foot'. In all cases, it just implies 'totally'.

[Pythia]

The 13th century English song Edi Beo Thu includes the lines

"Ic am thi mon, to honde bothe and to foot in allewise that ic kon", in other words, "I'm your man, hand and foot, in every way I can*

* (or maybe 'that I know' - not sure)

[Bert]

I'd just like to point out that 'whence' means 'from where', so you could have asked "whence comes the saying ...". Perhaps you were trying to avoid having a preposition at the end of the sentence, but you could have said "From where ....come?"