diff --git a/sys/man/2/tmdate b/sys/man/2/tmdate
index e4123c3e1..ba5c4441a 100644
--- a/sys/man/2/tmdate
+++ b/sys/man/2/tmdate
@@ -134,8 +134,7 @@ For example,
 will format to a width of 3. When parsing, this acts as whitespace.
 .TP
 .B ?
-When parsing, this makes the following argument match fuzzily.
-Fuzzy matching means that all formats are tried, from most to least specific.
+When parsing, all formats of the following argument are tried from most to least specific.
 For example, 
 .I ?M
 will match 
@@ -144,7 +143,9 @@ will match
 .IR 01 ,
 and 
 .IR 1 ,
-in that order of preference.
+in that order. When formatting,
+.B ?
+is ignored.
 .TP
 .B ~
 When parsing a date, this slackens range enforcement, accepting
diff --git a/sys/src/libc/port/date.c b/sys/src/libc/port/date.c
index 1c90a7985..7be6cb52f 100644
--- a/sys/src/libc/port/date.c
+++ b/sys/src/libc/port/date.c
@@ -428,6 +428,9 @@ static int
 		switch(c0){
 		case 0:
 			break;
+		/* Ignore '?' so we can share parse and format strings */
+		case '?':
+			continue;
 		case 'Y':
 			switch(w){
 			case 1:	n += fmtprint(f, "%*d", pad, tm->year + 1900);		break;