Good morning,

The subsequent swarms, however, are led by virgin queens. Just hatched, said the expert, and flightly and restless, like yound maids the whole world over.

Does it mean something like “over the whole world” or something like “with the whole world waiting for them”, or something else?

Thank you,
Ana

It simply means ‘over the whole world’.  It is similar to ‘the whole year round’ (= round the whole year) or ‘all my life through’ (= through all my life).

The subsequent swarms, however, are led by virgin queens. Just hatched, said the expert, and flightly[sic “flighty”] and restless, like yound[sic “young”] maids the whole world over.

Rather I perceive “the whole world over” to be thinly veiled sexist connotation as if young, undefiled maidens everywhere have nothing better to do than just wait around for that handsome dream prince to come sweep them away from such a pining, mundane existence.

Yes, it seems to me that the phrase has that connotation.

I apologize for the misspellings..

Thank you very much.

Ana

Looking over some old threads, I came across this one - see my earlier reply above.  I am sure there is a word (derived from Greek) for this type of figure of speech, whereby a preposition is placed directly after the noun to which it refers.  But the word escapes me.  Any ideas?

Sorry,no, for my part.

)Perhaps too general)

Anastrophe: transposition of normal word order; most often found in Latin in the case of prepositions and the words they control. Anastrophe is a form of hyperbaton.

“The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew.” Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/rhetoric.html#6

Got it!  Anastrophe - that’s the word I was looking for.  I checked it in Fowler’s Modern English Usage, and yes, that’s where I’d originally seen it!  Thanks a lot, saparris.

So that’s a further piece of information for you, aalvares, if you’re still subscribed to this thread.