diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index ffb2ad56..74a28bf1 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@
 	work at startup.  It no longer worked because the assigned value gets
 	overwritten by a later initialization of 'last_search' to the empty
 	string.  Found through the use of valgrind.
+	* src/text.c (do_alt_speller): Avoid an unfounded warning about a
+	possibly uninitialized variable.
 
 2015-07-17  Mike Frysinger  <vapier@gentoo.org>
 	* src/browser.c (browser_refresh): Use the proper type (off_t) for
diff --git a/src/text.c b/src/text.c
index a057f5ed..aa0d2546 100644
--- a/src/text.c
+++ b/src/text.c
@@ -2666,7 +2666,7 @@ const char *do_alt_speller(char *tempfile_name)
 	 * the alternate spell command.  The line that mark_begin points
 	 * to will be freed, so we save the line number and restore it
 	 * afterwards. */
-    size_t size_of_surrounding;
+    size_t size_of_surrounding = 0;
 	/* The size of the text outside of a marked region. */
 #endif