I spotted this phrase in a book I’m reading, referring to “uma comissão de oficiais técnicos”. The speaker starts his rant by exclaiming “Baboseiras!” which I took as being related to “babar” (to drool) which it is, and so he obviously doesn’t have a high opinion of these people. OK, so I’m not expecting anything good, but what does it actually mean?
Mangas-de-alpaca were sleeves worn by clerks on their lower arms to protect their clothes from getting scratched and ink-stained during service. By extension, the term can be used pejoratively to describe a bureaucrat or a pen-pusher in general.
Whether or not you use hyphens is usually important and the AO tends to be quite prescriptive. I’ve used hyphens here because that’s how Priberam spells it but neither Wikipedia or the book use hyphens, so I’m not really sure who’s correct!
Luso 