where does this phrase orginate from

[CAROLINE]

to walk a country mile

[Ewood27]

If you click here you will find this question answered on another forum. It doesn't deal with the "walking" part, but I think the meaning is not hard to see.

[Ewood27]

On refelection, perhaps the meaning does need a bit of amplification. Walking a country mile means going a long way (to solve a problem), going beyond what would normally be expected. A similar phrase with the same meaning is to "go the extra mile".

[Canib]

In the USA, when asked how far is, the answer differs depending on whether you live in the city or the country. In Chicago, where I was born, we were taught that a mile was 8 city blocks. In the country (I live in Texas now) when you are in a rural setting and are told that something is 3-4 miles up the road, the measurements are much more generous. This has changed with the odometer telling us just how far things actually are, but when it was estimated, the mile as indicated by those in the country was much longer than it is in the city.