Dates not formatting correctly

I'm not really sure how to ask this question so I'll just show what I'm trying to do. I have a cell with a date that I want used in other cells (let's say A2). I want it formatted dd mmm yyyy. There is a comment in D2 that I have like this

="words words words"&A2&"."

I want it to return this: words words words 22 Aug 2011
Instead it returns this: words words words 40777

Is there a way to fix my formula to get the date to show up correctly?