diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/download_strategy.rb b/Library/Homebrew/download_strategy.rb
index 6957ae1711..ce2185d6a7 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/download_strategy.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/download_strategy.rb
@@ -401,7 +401,7 @@ class SubversionDownloadStrategy < VCSDownloadStrategy
   end
 
   def get_externals
-    `'#{shell_quote('svn')}' propget svn:externals '#{shell_quote(@url)}'`.chomp.each_line do |line|
+    `svn propget svn:externals '#{shell_quote(@url)}'`.chomp.each_line do |line|
       name, url = line.split(/\s+/)
       yield name, url
     end