Your "watch" command didn't work because the first thing that happens is that your shell expands the $(date) word into the current date, and then it runs "watch

Your "watch" command didn't work because the first thing that happens is that your shell expands the $(date) word into the current date, and then it runs "watch -n1 echo 'Mon Jan 1 ...'". You should have just done "watch -n1 date". BTW, the manual for bash is really good: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.pdf https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.pdf