Vou pôr-me a milhas

Portuguese Questions Vocabulary
1

This phrase is in my review sentences and I’ve been saying it without giving it much thought, but today it occurred to me…that’s miles…Portugal doesn’t use miles.

Does anybody know the history of the phrase? Starting from no knowledge I figure it could be:

  • not miles like we Brits know and love, but a hang over from Latin (I think the Romans had a mille, or something like that). Same source, but not otherwise connected to the mile
  • connected to nautical miles (after all the Portuguese got about a bit in boats) which I believe is still an international unit of measurement
  • some phrase from a movie that got stuck in the language.

Any ideas?

2

@coljay, couldn’t find any concrete information about the origin of the expression, but Portugal has used miles historically, among other units (e.g. leagues), before the metric system became official at some point in the 19th century :slight_smile:

2 Likes