The words _world_ and _earth_ often come into our Anglo-Irish speech in a way that will be understood and recognised from the following examples:--'Where in the world are you going so early?' 'What in the world kept you out so long?' 'What on earth is wrong with you?' 'That cloud looks for all the world like a man.' 'Oh you young thief of the world, why did you do that?' (to a child). These expressions are all thrown in for emphasis, and they are mainly or altogether imported from the Irish. They are besides of long standing. In the 'Colloquy'--a very old Irish piece--the king of Leinster says to St. Patrick:--'I do not know _in the world_ how it fares [with my son].' So also in a still older story, 'The Voyage of Maildune':--'And they [Maildune and his people] knew not whither _in the world_ (_isan bith_) they were going. In modern Irish, _Ní chuirionn sé tábhacht a n-éinidh san domhuin_: 'he minds nothing in the world.' (Mac Curtin.)
But I think some of the above expressions are found in good English too, both old and new. For example in a letter to Queen Elizabeth the Earl of Ormond (an Irishman--one of the Butlers) designates a certain Irish chief 'that most arrogant, { 50} vile, traitor of the world Owney McRorye' [O'Moore]. But perhaps he wrote this with an Irish pen.
A person does something to displease me--insults me, breaks down my hedge--and I say 'I will not let that go with him': meaning I will bring him to account for it, I will take satisfaction, I will punish him. This, which is very usual, is an Irish idiom. In the story of The Little Brawl of Allen, Goll boasts of having slain Finn's father; and Finn answers _bud maith m'acfainnse ar gan sin do léicen let_, 'I am quite powerful enough not to let that go with you.' ('Silva Gadelica.') Sometimes this Anglo-Irish phrase means to vie with, to rival. 'There's no doubt that old Tom Long is very rich': 'Yes indeed, but I think Jack Finnerty _wouldn't let it go with him_.' Lory Hanly at the dance, seeing his three companions sighing and obviously in love with three of the ladies, feels himself just as bad for a fourth, and sighing, says to himself that he 'wouldn't let it go with any of them.' ('Knocknagow.')