Kentucky mile

Posted by Baceseras on June 15, 2009 at 12:38

In Reply to: Kentucky mile posted by ESC on June 12, 2009 at 12:11:

: : Why use "by a Kentucky mile", as in "He lost the race by a Kentucky mile", or "He missed by a Kentucky mile"? It seems to mean to fail by an extra-large margin, but why refer to a "Kentucky mile"?

: "Country mile" is pretty easy to understand. A country mile would seem longer, especially when one is lost in the woods. I've never heard of Kentucky mile. Maybe because horse races can be won by inches, a Kentucky mile seems way longer than an ordinary mile.

If the phrase is old enough to support this, it's more likely to come from the pioneering experience than from horse-racing. Settlers travelling into Kentucky to stake their claims there would have found "a mile" through the trackless wilderness much longer than an ordinary mile. But this version of its "origin" has no degree of certainty unless the phrase is attested at least by the first decade of the 1800s.