diff --git a/src/Paragraph.cpp b/src/Paragraph.cpp
index 285fc4b273..2d8f168e13 100644
--- a/src/Paragraph.cpp
+++ b/src/Paragraph.cpp
@@ -2312,7 +2312,7 @@ pos_type Paragraph::firstWordLyXHTML(XHTMLStream & xs, OutputParams const & runp
 			char_type c = d->text_[i];
 			if (c == ' ')
 				break;
-			xs << html::escapeChar(c);
+			xs << c;
 		}
 	}
 	return i;