A block is just some arbitrarily short distance. It’s the distance between two cross streets, maybe 1/10th of a mile. It’s not intended to be precise.
Natural languages: where ambiguous meanings abound, and yet we manage to form complex social structures nonetheless.
In UK we say "to the next corner" sometimes (but not as a measurement, per se), I guess that would be equivalent?
It sounds like when you say "about a minute" that this would over-rule the "next intersection" part. So when you say "it's a blocks walk away" (or whatever) you're saying "it's a minute['s walk] away"?
That would be 100% equivalent when counting blocks. "Go four blocks and then turn left" means "go left at the fourth intersection". There will inevitably be some interpretive ambiguity when one passes a T intersection that only goes right. Was that a block even though there was no available left turn? Did the person mean "pass three lefts and this one doesn't count because it's a right"? Nobody knows. It's why we name streets now.
> It sounds like when you say "about a minute" that this would over-rule the "next intersection" part.
When talking abstractly, yes. "A block's-worth of walking" cannot be interpreted with any particular block in mind, so one must use an imaginary platonic ideal of block length.