Where dose the phrase 'A miss is as good as a mile' originate?

Fosse4

Brewers Phrase and Fable is ever so helpful!!!!! - it say's it derives from 'An Inch is as good as an Ell' then doesn't include that phrase in the book. It does say it means failure is failure no matter how small the margin of failure (from some general knowledge the Ell was a printing measure (Els and Ems being the size of the type faces and Els being thinner than Ems)) - so the inference is that if you miss by a very small margin you might just as well have missed by a large distance - YOU STILL MISSED! Sep 24 02, 9:02 PM

pirate

An ell is an archaic fabric measurement, I think a bit longer than a yard. Sep 24 02, 9:44 PM

observer

Ell was equal to 45 inches in England, 37.2 inches in Scotland and 27 inches in the Low Countries. It was equivalent to the length of the forearm measured from EL-bow to tips of stretched fingers. It derives from the Latin word ulna. Whether it means that the English had longer forearms than the Dutch and the Scots may be too hard a question to solve, even for Funtriviaddicts. Initially the forearm was used for rolling up and measuring cloth.Later, yardsticks were used. In Dutch/Flemish the term ell-goods (ellegoederen) is still used for cloth bought from a roll of cloth. Sep 25 02, 7:37 AM