On the 'date' man and info pages, SYNOPSIS date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT] date [-u|--utc|--universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]
Synopses: date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT] date [-u|--utc|--universal] [ MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss] ] please break these down into: printing the date: date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT] setting the date: date [-u|--utc|--universal] [ MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss] ] date [-s|--set] DATESTR else the user in a panic to set the date, will try # date -s 10140110 date: cannot set date: Invalid argument Mon Jan 10 00:00:00 LMT 1014 Instead of $ date 10140110 Only on (info "(coreutils) Setting the time") is the mystery revealed. P.S., on that page you should mention the MMDDhhmm... string again, not just its components.