+@cindex language, in dates
+In the current implementation, only English is supported for words and
+abbreviations like @samp{AM}, @samp{DST}, @samp{EST}, @samp{first},
+@samp{January}, @samp{Sunday}, @samp{tomorrow}, and @samp{year}.
+
+@cindex language, in dates
+@cindex time zone item
+The output of @command{date} is not always acceptable as a date string,
+not only because of the language problem, but also because there is no
+standard meaning for time zone items like @samp{IST}. When using
+@command{date} to generate a date string intended to be parsed later,
+specify a date format that is independent of language and that does not
+use time zone items other than @samp{UTC} and @samp{Z}. Here are some
+ways to do this:
+
+@example
+$ LC_ALL=C TZ=UTC0 date
+Fri Dec 15 19:48:05 UTC 2000
+$ TZ=UTC0 date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%SZ"
+2000-12-15 19:48:05Z
+$ date --iso-8601=seconds # a GNU extension
+2000-12-15T11:48:05-0800
+$ date --rfc-822 # a GNU extension
+Fri, 15 Dec 2000 11:48:05 -0800
+$ date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z" # %z is a GNU extension.
+2000-12-15 11:48:05 -0800
+@end example
+