diff --git a/src/utils.py b/src/utils.py
index 6535f8166..4f1bd3518 100755
--- a/src/utils.py
+++ b/src/utils.py
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ import sgmllib
 import textwrap
 import htmlentitydefs
 
+def normalizeWhitespace(s):
+    """Normalizes the whitespace in a string; \s+ becomes one space."""
+    return ' '.join(s.split())
+
 class HtmlToText(sgmllib.SGMLParser):
     """Taken from some eff-bot code on c.l.p."""
     entitydefs = htmlentitydefs.entitydefs
@@ -63,7 +67,7 @@ class HtmlToText(sgmllib.SGMLParser):
 
     def getText(self):
         text = ''.join(self.data).strip()
-        return ' '.join(text.split()) # normalize whitespace
+        return normalizeWhitespace(text)
 
 def htmlToText(s, tagReplace=' '):
     """Turns HTML into text.  tagReplace is a string to replace HTML tags with.
@@ -302,4 +306,5 @@ def be(i):
     else:
         return 'are'
 
+
 # vim:set shiftwidth=4 tabstop=8 expandtab textwidth=78:
diff --git a/test/test_utils.py b/test/test_utils.py
index 1e2eef0c4..a2ee147ed 100644
--- a/test/test_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_utils.py
@@ -157,5 +157,11 @@ class UtilsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(utils.unCommaThe('foo bar, the'), 'the foo bar')
         self.assertEqual(utils.unCommaThe('foo bar, The'), 'The foo bar')
         self.assertEqual(utils.unCommaThe('foo bar,the'), 'the foo bar')
+
+    def testNormalizeWhitespace(self):
+        self.assertEqual(utils.normalizeWhitespace('foo   bar'), 'foo bar')
+        self.assertEqual(utils.normalizeWhitespace('foo\nbar'), 'foo bar')
+        self.assertEqual(utils.normalizeWhitespace('foo\tbar'), 'foo bar')
+        
 # vim:set shiftwidth=4 tabstop=8 expandtab textwidth=78: