>I tested with only "date" and VFP gets back at me saying that the field name is not precise enough. I looked at my interrogation and I didn't see another place where I select a "date" field. Unless VFP considers "date" to be a reserved word.
>
>At least I've got a fix to make my app work but still this one bugs me and I'd like to understand what's going on here.
>
>update : then again my order with MeaningfullNameForDate works in my short select but not in my big select.
>
>
>>Silly question: does it work if the name is shorter? Such as mydate instead of MeaningfullNameForDate? have you tested it?

Denis could you post repro code?
Just becuase that work for me:

CREATE CURSOR crsTest (date D, Fld1 I)
RAND(-1)
FOR asd = 1 TO 200
    INSERT INTO crsTest VALUES (DATE()-INT(RAND()*(asd*100000))%199,asd)
NEXT 

SELECT date As MyVeryLongDescriptionOfDate, Fld1  FROM CrsTest ORDER BY MyVeryLongDescriptionOfDate