Cascais Street Corner

A Long of Fishing

Fishing in Cascais likely goes back to the Romans. And, for many years, fishing was the city’s primary industry.

This mural wraps around a street corner a few blocks from our apartment. On many days cars are parked (illegally) in front of the mural … but on Monday we were able to get an unobstructed view.

Notice that in this mural the city name is spelled Cascaes. I found that the spelling was officially changed in 1911.

'The forms "Cascaes" and "portugueza" predate the 1945 Orthographic Agreement. Thus:

1. Cascaes must have been replaced by Cascais following the 1911 Reform, which determined that the "[a weak subjunctive of diphthongs is always written with i, u,e never e, o [...]" (Report, published in Diário do Governo, no. 213, September 12, 1911, in Ivo Castro et al., A Demanda da Ortografia Portuguesa, Edições João Sá da Costa, 1987, p. 156). It is possible that the Cascaes spelling continued after 1911; in any case, the 1931 agreement again reinforced that ae should give way to ai (idem, p. 165; the original spelling is retained): "[To spell] [c]om ai, au, eu, iu and oi the diphthongs that some write with ae, ao, eo, io, oe: mãi, pau, ceu, viu, heroi [...]. "1

Admit it … you never know what you will learn from reading my musings.