Makefile and qmake target missing quotes

On Linux and, I suspect, other makefile generators when you pass a multiword variable to qmake the "Makefile" or "qmake" don't handle it properly.

i.e., if my .pro file is

$$size(MY_VAR)

and I do
qmake 'MY_VAR="two words"'
it prints 1 like I expect
but then if I run
make qmake
it prints 2