English colloquialism for " à pendre et à dépendre" ?

[Chris Waigl]

Joel S. Berson wrote:

>A recent message (on another list) suggests another sense for "spend":
>
>Vous pouvez absolument disposer de moi
>[The writer] hadn't thought of this nuance of
>'spend' - that is, rather than suggesting that
>you are a good enough friend to spend WITH, you
>are a friend available to be either hung or
>spent: "I am yours to hang or to spend", that is,
>to dispose of as you will. All this depending
>largely on the sound value of the two similar
>words, which provides a link beyond the strict grammatical construction.
>
>
This doesn't answer your query in the least -- any equivalent English
idiom would certainly use a different metaphor. But TLFi doesn't agree
with your interpretation of the French version. First of all, as an
aside, the sense "spend" for _dépendre_ is obsolete, but the correct one
here. But "à pendre et a dépendre" is a jocular reshaping of "à vendre
et à dépendre" (to sell and to spend), according to TLFi, which notes
that this and other variants show that "the original sense of the idiom
ceased to be understood" (I'm paraphrasing). The image is about a friend
who is such a good one that s/he is "(all) yours to sell and to spend".

Chris Waigl