diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 9f009a35a..1fb70e545 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@
 - TW-1705 Directories in .task/hooks should not be reported as invalid hooks
           (thanks to Tomas Babej).
 - TW-1714 Starting recurring task starts all recurrences (thanks to Robin Green).
+- TW-1719 Description cannot contain improper ordinals (thanks to Ben Boeckel).
 - TW-1720 CmdContext uses a mix of both throw and std::cout to convey
           errors (thanks to Paul Beckingham).
 - TW-1723 task info causes segfault (thanks to Roman Golovin).
diff --git a/src/Dates.cpp b/src/Dates.cpp
index 3bda2508b..a0b5035c2 100644
--- a/src/Dates.cpp
+++ b/src/Dates.cpp
@@ -440,11 +440,7 @@ bool namedDates (const std::string& name, Variant& value)
           value = Variant (mktime (t), Variant::type_date);
         }
       }
-      else
-        throw std::string (STRING_DATES_ORD_MISMATCH);
     }
-    else
-      throw std::string (STRING_DATES_MONTH_31);
   }
 
   else if (closeEnough ("easter",       name, minimum) ||
diff --git a/test/add.t b/test/add.t
index 9c7d8e900..e62ce052d 100755
--- a/test/add.t
+++ b/test/add.t
@@ -227,6 +227,22 @@ class TestBug1612(TestCase):
         self.assertEqual("(bar) a / (foo bar)\n", out)
 
 
+class TestBug1719(TestCase):
+    def setUp(self):
+        self.t = Task()
+
+    def test_improper_ordinals(self):
+        """1719: Description cannot contain improper ordinals"""
+        self.t("add one 1th");
+        self.t("add two 23rd");
+
+        code, out, err = self.t("_get 1.description")
+        self.assertEqual("one 1th\n", out)
+
+        code, out, err = self.t("_get 2.description")
+        self.assertEqual("two 23rd\n", out)
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     from simpletap import TAPTestRunner
     unittest.main(testRunner=TAPTestRunner())