diff --git a/src/as/com/threerings/util/MessageBundle.as b/src/as/com/threerings/util/MessageBundle.as
index 73b80b9a3..7faadecf0 100644
--- a/src/as/com/threerings/util/MessageBundle.as
+++ b/src/as/com/threerings/util/MessageBundle.as
@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ public class MessageBundle
             return (key + args);
         }
 
-        return mx.utils.StringUtil.substitute(escape(msg), args);
+        return mx.utils.StringUtil.substitute(msg, args);
     }
 
     /**
@@ -355,19 +355,6 @@ public class MessageBundle
         return qualifiedKey.substring(qsidx + 1);
     }
 
-    /**
-     * Used to escape single quotes so that they are not interpreted by
-     * {@link MessageFormat}. As we assume all single quotes are to be
-     * escaped, we cannot use the characters <code>{</code> and
-     * <code>}</code> in our translation strings, but this is a small
-     * price to pay to have to differentiate between messages that will
-     * and won't eventually be parsed by a {@link MessageFormat} instance.
-     */
-    public static function escape (val :String) :String
-    {
-        return val.replace("'", "''");
-    }
-
     /**
      * Unescapes characters that are escaped in a call to compose.
      */