diff --git a/patchlevel.h b/patchlevel.h
index 8002af7..772676c 100644
--- a/patchlevel.h
+++ b/patchlevel.h
@@ -25,6 +25,6 @@
    regexp `^#define[ 	]*PATCHLEVEL', since that's what support/mkversion.sh
    looks for to find the patch level (for the sccs version string). */
 
-#define PATCHLEVEL 10
+#define PATCHLEVEL 11
 
 #endif /* _PATCHLEVEL_H_ */
diff --git a/subst.c b/subst.c
index 9559187..fd6db24 100644
--- a/subst.c
+++ b/subst.c
@@ -3625,7 +3625,9 @@ remove_backslashes (string)
    this case, we quote the string specially for the globbing code.  If
    SPECIAL is 2, this is an rhs argument for the =~ operator, and should
    be quoted appropriately for regcomp/regexec.  The caller is responsible
-   for removing the backslashes if the unquoted word is needed later. */   
+   for removing the backslashes if the unquoted word is needed later. In
+   any case, since we don't perform word splitting, we need to do quoted
+   null character removal. */
 char *
 cond_expand_word (w, special)
      WORD_DESC *w;
@@ -3646,6 +3648,8 @@ cond_expand_word (w, special)
     {
       if (special == 0)			/* LHS */
 	{
+	  if (l->word)
+	    word_list_remove_quoted_nulls (l);
 	  dequote_list (l);
 	  r = string_list (l);
 	}