diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 04e5a164242914..f70b7df0a77c76 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ before_install:
         export LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix openblas-julia)/lib -L$(brew --prefix suite-sparse-julia)/lib";
         export DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:$(brew --prefix openblas-julia)/lib:$(brew --prefix suite-sparse-julia)/lib:$(brew --prefix arpack-julia)/lib";
         export JULIA_MACOS_SPAWN="DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=\"$DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH\" \$1";
-        export BUILDOPTS="$BUILDOPTS spawn=\$(JULIA_MACOS_SPAWN)";
+        export BUILDOPTS="$BUILDOPTS spawn=\"$JULIA_MACOS_SPAWN\"";
         make $BUILDOPTS -C contrib -f repackage_system_suitesparse4.make;
         TESTSTORUN="all --skip linalg/triangular subarray"; fi # TODO: re enable these if possible without timing out
     - git clone -q git://git.kitenet.net/moreutils
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ script:
     # capture the log, but only print it if `make deps` fails
     # try to show the end of the log first, because this log might be very long (> 4MB)
     # and thus be truncated by travis
-    - moreutils/mispipe "make \$BUILDOPTS VERBOSE=0 -C deps 2> deps-err.log" "$BAR" > deps.log ||
+    - moreutils/mispipe "make $BUILDOPTS VERBOSE=0 -C deps 2> deps-err.log" "$BAR" > deps.log ||
         { echo "-- deps build log stderr tail 100 --------------------------------------";
           tail -n 100 deps-err.log;
           echo "-- deps build log stdout tail 100 --------------------------------------";