diff --git a/src/parallel b/src/parallel
index d69e0461..df6dc7d1 100755
--- a/src/parallel
+++ b/src/parallel
@@ -860,8 +860,8 @@ sub parse_options {
     if(defined $opt::X) { $Global::ContextReplace = 1; }
     if(defined $opt::silent) { $Global::verbose = 0; }
     if(defined $opt::0) { $/ = "\0"; }
-    if(defined $opt::d) { my $e="sprintf qq{$opt::d}"; $/ = eval $e; }
-    if(defined $opt::tagstring) { my $e="sprintf qq{$opt::tagstring}"; $opt::tagstring = eval $e; }
+    if(defined $opt::d) { $/ = unquote_printf($opt::d) }
+    if(defined $opt::tagstring) { $opt::tagstring = unquote_printf($opt::tagstring); }
     if(defined $opt::p) { $Global::interactive = $opt::p; }
     if(defined $opt::q) { $Global::quoting = 1; }
     if(defined $opt::r) { $Global::ignore_empty = 1; }
@@ -1567,6 +1567,17 @@ sub perl_quote_scalar {
     return $a;
 }
 
+sub unquote_printf {
+    # Convert \t \n \r \0 \000
+    $_ = shift;
+    s/\\t/\t/g;
+    s/\\n/\n/g;
+    s/\\r/\r/g;
+    s/\\(\d\d\d)/eval 'sprintf "\\'.$1.'"'/ge;
+    s/\\(\d)/eval 'sprintf "\\'.$1.'"'/ge;
+    return $_;
+}
+
 sub __FILEHANDLES__ {}