Hello, I think my issue can best be described by demonstration. Here goes: user@server$ /bin/date Tue Apr 29 15:51:11 EDT 2014 user@server$ /bin/date -d 'last month' +%B March user@server$ /bin/date -d '*2 months ago*' +%B *March* user@server$ /bin/date -d '3 months ago' +%B January I expected 2 months ago to be February, not March. I get that Feb 29 doesn't exist, so returning a date that never happened might not make sense. But in simply asking for the month, not the full date of 2 months ago, could %B be calculated first, before rolling over to March 1st? Here is some other potentially helpful info: user@server$ rpm -qf /bin/date coreutils-5.97-34.el5_8.1 user@server$ date -d '1 month ago' Sat Mar 29 15:57:36 EDT 2014 user@server$ date -d '2 months ago' Sat Mar 1 14:57:45 EST 2014 user@server$ date -d '3 months ago' Wed Jan 29 14:58:41 EST 2014 Thanks! Ben