In the US, ten city blocks equals one mile, more or less. Walk from 9th Street to 29th, and you’ve walked two miles, roughly. Here in the flatlands, county roads are even more precise. Walk from 200 North to 400 North, and that’s 2 miles, purt’ near spot on. Where 200 West bends a little west to make a neater corner with a city street, it’s called 210 West.
A Country Mile in a New York Minute would be at least 60 mph, so it looks like you’ll need that pickup truck, after all. 
Is that true? I can tell you it’s not how it works here in Manhattan, with our famous street grid system. Twenty (north-south) blocks equal a mile here; walk from 9th St. to 29th St. and you’ve covered only one mile.
Yes. However, ten east-west (avenue) blocks equals one mile.
My guess would be that it’s similar to country cooking. There’s often no such thing as a recipe or measuring cups. The really good country cooks just add what looks like it’ll work and it usually does. Or if they do actually write it down for you…the recipe will say something like: a handful of flour, a pinch of baking soda, a dash of sugar and salt to taste.
An invite to dinner will probably not specify a time, it would be something like “drop by at dinner time. We usually eat about sunset.”
Basically it’s a lack of precision because out in the country you just do what works. Details like ‘a mile’ or ‘a cup’ are just not needed.
Nor Chicago. In Chicago, it’s 8 blocks to a mile. Except between Madison and Roosevelt, where it’s 12, and Roosevelt and Cermak (where it’s 10), and Cermak and 31st (where it’s 9). Other than that three-mile stretch, it’s rigidly 8 blocks on the grid system equals one mile. There are no exceptions on the east-west coordinate.
I don’t think it’s standard at all that 10 blocks = 1 mile in the US.
Perhaps in Indiana, where the state roads render a landscape with the all the variety of graph paper, but I don’t think it’s so rigid everywhere.
And “New York minute” does not mean “you betcha.” “You bethca” or just “yes” is implied in those responses. The inclusion of “New York minute” simply emphasizes the swiftness that accompanies either your task or the deicison making process by which you decided to undertake the task, e.g. q:“Would you kill, OJ” a:"[Yes, I would kill OJ] in a New York minute (i.e. “very quickly,” or, “and it did not take me very long to decide that I would kill OJ”)
I once heard countryfied sportscaster Red Barber talk about “a country mile”. He claimed it was not that well known to city folks before he became a broadcaster and popularized it. Which could well be true.
As I remember the discussion went something like this, “You don’t know what a country mile is? Well then you’ve never asked a farmer for directions, have you? He’ll tell you the turn off you want is just a mile or two up the road. Nine or ten miles later after going over some of the God awfulest roads you have ever seen, you get there. That’s a country mile, cousin.”
In other words a country mile is a bit further than a hoot ‘n’ a holler. As I heard on NPR the other day, “It ain’t rocket surgery, but it’s close.”
Isn’t a New York second defined as the interval of time between the light going green and the guy behind you honking his horn?
Bolding mine.
And a “hoot ‘n’ a holler” is further than a “hop, skip, and a jump.”
Well, I did say “more or less” and “roughly,” my point being that farmers know precisely how many acres they have, and how far it is to the end of the north 40. In the city, unless you’re the guy who owns the block, you only know approximately how long the next block is. In an extra-long block, the address numbers will change in mid-block, e.g. from 1282 to 1302.
Manhattan is older than most US cities. Even if it weren’t, NYC is the center of the known universe, :rolleyes: and it doesn’t have to follow anyone else’s puny standards. You gotta problem wit dat? No, Mr. Trump, you are right, sir. 
I understand, but my point is that you cannot generalize about the size of a city block. It varies widely from city to city.
To wit: Salt Lake City has 7 blocks to the mile. In the old part of Philly, it’s 13 to the mile. Most places I have looked at seem to say that 12, not ten, is normal. Others say the standard is 8, like Chicago. Sacramento is 12.5 per mile. In Portland, 20. In many east coast cities, 16 to 20 seems to be the norm.
I think a more accurate statement is in the US, a city block is generally from 1/8 to 1/20 of a mile long (and even then we have exception like Salt Lake City.)
I can’t find anything definitive on the origin, but I can find a US newspaper cite as far back as the late 1800’s. I’ll venture a guess that it’s US slang. I’ll try to do more as I have time.
amok
amuck
buck
chuck
cluck
duck
muck
pluck
puck
ruck
schmuck
snuck
struck
stuck
suck
tuck
yuck
Yes, I omitted the obvious.
Naturally, why mentioned luck when we all would have thought of it anyway.
I’d run a country mile in a New York minute
To see a coffin with my ex-wife in it
Oh oh oh she done me wrong
A drunk Canuck hit her with his truck
I was far away, but oh what luck
I’ll buy him drinks all his life long.
We call that a Panasecond around here. Observation shows that this is sometimes even a negative quantity, indicatingthat faster-than-light travel may be possible.
Pulykamell, I surrender. You’ve done your research, and you’re right. :smack:
Third verse needs a dog – excuse me, a dawg.
And it should be a dead dog, or at least an old and faithful but very ill one.
[edited for lousy typing] 
And when she’s dead and in the ground
I’ll take a walk with my huntin hound
He’ll have some water, I’ll have some beers
and we’ll wet the ground, but not with tears.