diff --git a/testsuite/sed/sed-recurses-properly b/testsuite/sed/sed-recurses-properly
index bee1a419a..69cfc0183 100644
--- a/testsuite/sed/sed-recurses-properly
+++ b/testsuite/sed/sed-recurses-properly
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 # XFAIL
-test "$(echo '12345' | busybox sed -e 's/[[:space:]]*/,/g')" = ',1,2,3,4,5,'
+test "`echo '12345' | busybox sed -e 's/[[:space:]]*/,/g')` = ',1,2,3,4,5,'