diff --git a/docs/releases/1.2.txt b/docs/releases/1.2.txt
index a2c70fed06..f83e4dcc90 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.2.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.2.txt
@@ -240,14 +240,16 @@ status code for the test runner is now 0 for success (no failing tests) and 1
 for any number of test failures. If needed, the number of test failures can be
 found at the end of the test runner's output.
 
-Cookie quoting
---------------
+Cookie encoding
+---------------
 
-Due to bugs and variations in web browsers, we've slightly changed the way that
-cookie values are encoded. Comma (',') and semi-colon (';') now use the same
-octal encoding mechanism that is used for other special characters.  If you
-were not previously storing either of these two characters in cookies you are
-not affected.
+To fix bugs with cookies in Internet Explorer, Safari, and possibly other
+browsers, our encoding of cookie values was changed so that the characters
+comma and semi-colon are treated as non-safe characters, and are therefore
+encoded as ``\054`` and ``\073`` respectively.  This could produce backwards
+incompatibilities, especially if you are storing comma or semi-colon in
+cookies and have javascript code that parses and manipulates cookie values
+client-side.
 
 .. _deprecated-features-1.2: