Of New-Zealand and Australian origin, the colloquial phrase to stick out a mile, and its variants, mean: to be very prominent or conspicuous.
The variant to stand out a mile occurs, for example, in the column Off the Hook, by Lincoln Shaw, published in the Herald Express (Torquay, Devon, England) of Wednesday 29th September 1999 [page 33, column 1]:
I WONDER what the Spanish is for “grockles”? It was probably on the lips of many Barcelonians as we hit the tourist trail in their city, standing out a mile in our sun hats, hands clutching the maps without which we would be lost.
—Cf. also the colloquial phrase to stick out like a sore thumb, which means: to be very obviously different from the surrounding people or things.
The earliest occurrences that I have found of the phrase to stick out a mile and variants are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From a correspondence from London, dated Friday 21st September 1883, published in The Evening Star (Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand) of Wednesday 7th November 1883 [No. 6,441, page 4, column 4]:
The “silly season,” thank goodness, is rapidly drawing to a close […].
Our daily papers are pulling through the dull time in characteristic fashion. […] The ‘Daily Telegraph’ is devoting two columns per diem to a discussion on the burning question “What shall we do with our boys?” I wish I could furnish you with an abstract of this correspondence, for some of the letters have contained most astonishing propositions. Many, of course, come from promoters of special settlements in the States and British North America, who solved the conundrum by advising “Send your sons to the Blank Ranche in Texas and they will find plenty of work and good wages there.” The writers interested in the said ranche were, of course, supposed to be artfully concealed, but one could nevertheless see it “sticking out half a mile.”
2-: From the column Sporting and Athletic News, published in The Bulletin (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 25th July 1885 [Vol. 3, No. 115, page 14, column 3]:
Prior to commencing to discharge his duties as master of the ceremonies, Mr. Foley desired it to be placed on record that the other night he offered to box Farnan for 6d., and Mr. F. declined. Larry then offered Farnan 6d. and a cigar to box him, and still Mr. Farnan refused. There was a fifty-pound note “sticking out” a mile for him if he would have only pretended to box; but the Melbourne man couldn’t see it.
3-: From a letter to the Editor, by one John Brown, published in The Wairarapa Daily (Masterton, County Wairarapa East, New Zealand) of Wednesday 30th December 1885 [Vol. 7, No. 2,182, page 2, column 6]:
By some means or other it has got wind that I shall pass through your delightful little town this evening, and I dread the result. […] Some bush fiend […] has sent the swift-footed messenger through your town with the news that we are expected to arrive at 10 o’clock tonight, and leave at 7 to-morrow. I know the consequence, I can see it sticking out a mile! The Glasgow Highlandmen, the North of Ireland Scotchmen, and Jews, Turks, Infidels, and heretics, will make night hideous with their ”blatherskite.” I dread it!
4-: From The State Press, published in The Shreveport Daily Times (Shreveport, Louisiana, USA) of Sunday 26th September 1886 [Vol. 15, No. 300, page 4, column 3]:
The Capitolian-Advocate pays this tribute to Sedgwick:
His denials to the contrary notwithstanding, it is pretty well established that Special Envoy Sedgwick banked too much on his experience with whisky when he undertook to drink “pulque,” with the Mexicans. It put him in the fix that Noah was in the time he sampled the juice of the grape, with this difference, that the “pulque” inspired Sedgwick to paint the town. When last heard from Sedgwick was swearing before Secretary Bayard that the horse he saw that night was sixteen feet high. The fact sticks out a mile that Sedgwick is “one of the boys.”
5-: From an account of an Australian rules football game between Carlton Football Club and Geelong Football Club, in Sporting Life, by ‘Olympus’, published in the Melbourne Punch (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Thursday 15th September 1887 [page 129, column 4]:
WHAT about individual play? The old thing—“Where all were so good it would be invidious to particularise.” When Tom Leydin and H. M‘Lean, Jarrett and H. Smith, Cocky Robertson and Geordie Cook are pitted against each other—you know, it’s the survival of the fittest. Jasper Jones and Billy Strickland performed perhaps a few more prodigies for Carlton than some of the others, as also did Hickinbotham and M‘Lean for Geelong; but, then, they didn’t stand out a mile, any of them, over their comrades.
6-: From the column Political Points, published in The Bulletin (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 15th October 1887 [Vol. 8, No. 402, page 9, column 3]:
The only part of the N.S.W. Colonial Secretary’s office which is at all the worse for wear is the coat-of-arms over the Macquarie-street entrance. The grand old insignia of England’s greatness is—in marvellous contrast with the rest of the building—covered with bright-green moss. A big allegory here sticks out a mile.
7-: From the column Sporting Notes from Victoria, a correspondence dated Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Wednesday 12th October 1887, by ‘Olympus’, published in The Otago Witness (Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand) of Friday 21st October 1887 [No. 1,874, page 24, column 3]—the following is about the Caulfield Cup:
Here, within three days of the event, business—that’s betting business—is not within cooey of what it “used to was” a fortnight earlier a year or two back. Not but what there are thousands and thousands of pounds depending upon Mr R. S. Wakley’s fiat for the great mile and a-half event next Saturday. But there’s not the same verve (I cannot think of a better word at the moment) in the proceedings. There’s nothing special to account for this. Unlike the Melbourne Cup, there’s no Algerian sticking out a mile to paralyze matters; though after Saturday’s results the Kirkham stable are in such form that many draw deductions therefrom that Volcano must be a real good thing.
8-: From the column Society, published in The Bulletin (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 5th November 1887 [Vol. 8, No. 405, page 13, column 1]:
Australian “sassiety” is a hollow heartless bedizened swarm of sycophantic snobs and snobbesses. We hit upon this opinion after reading the following flippant remark by the social scribe in Melbourne Leader:—
“Apropos of the ball at Government House, it is very sad to think shat Lady Brassey, whose magnificent costume at the Jubilee Ball was so much admired, is no longer to be numbered with the living.”
Observe the sorrow for—the magnificent costume! Had Lady Brassey been the wife of plain Tom Brassey, and dressed in a russet gown, somebody would have mourned her. As it is the regret is for the tinsel, the gaudy, glittering dress, the shoddy title, the gilded purse, and not the woman. There is a wholesome moral sticking out a mile here, which future visitors of the De Bressi stamp should take to heart.
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