diff --git a/src/frontend/inp.c b/src/frontend/inp.c
index 4d6de50df..975ac4769 100644
--- a/src/frontend/inp.c
+++ b/src/frontend/inp.c
@@ -939,7 +939,14 @@ inp_dodeck(
     } // if (!noparse)  . . .
 
     /* add title of deck to data base */
+    /* this won't work if the title is the empty string
+    *    cp_addkword() doesn't work for tt === ""
+    *  since CT_CKTNAMES doesn't seem to be used anywhere
+    *  I've disabled this piece.
+    */
+#if 0
     cp_addkword(CT_CKTNAMES, tt);
+#endif
 }
 
 
diff --git a/src/frontend/parser/complete.c b/src/frontend/parser/complete.c
index 0163faed3..5e89a6da7 100644
--- a/src/frontend/parser/complete.c
+++ b/src/frontend/parser/complete.c
@@ -599,6 +599,10 @@ clookup(register char *word, struct ccom **dd, bool pref, bool create)
             buf[0] = *word;
             buf[1] = '\0';
             place->cc_name = copy(buf);
+            if (word[0] == '\0') {
+                fprintf(stderr, "ERROR, internal error, clookup() needs fixing to process the empty string\n");
+                controlled_exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
+            }
             if (word[1])
                 place->cc_invalid = 1;
         }