diff --git a/IkiWiki.pm b/IkiWiki.pm
index d7c827c89..a0a61ac64 100644
--- a/IkiWiki.pm
+++ b/IkiWiki.pm
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ use open qw{:utf8 :std};
 use vars qw{%config %links %oldlinks %pagemtime %pagectime %pagecase
 	    %pagestate %wikistate %renderedfiles %oldrenderedfiles
 	    %pagesources %destsources %depends %hooks %forcerebuild
-	    $gettext_obj %loaded_plugins};
+	    %loaded_plugins};
 
 use Exporter q{import};
 our @EXPORT = qw(hook debug error template htmlpage add_depends pagespec_match
@@ -459,7 +459,7 @@ sub checkconfig () {
 	if (defined $config{locale}) {
 		if (POSIX::setlocale(&POSIX::LC_ALL, $config{locale})) {
 			$ENV{LANG}=$config{locale};
-			$gettext_obj=undef;
+			define_gettext();
 		}
 	}
 		
@@ -1704,29 +1704,37 @@ sub file_pruned ($$) {
 	return $file =~ m/$regexp/ && $file ne $base;
 }
 
-sub gettext {
-	# Only use gettext in the rare cases it's needed.
+sub define_gettext () {
+	# If translation is needed, redefine the gettext function to do it.
+	# Otherwise, it becomes a quick no-op.
+	no warnings 'redefine';
 	if ((exists $ENV{LANG} && length $ENV{LANG}) ||
 	    (exists $ENV{LC_ALL} && length $ENV{LC_ALL}) ||
 	    (exists $ENV{LC_MESSAGES} && length $ENV{LC_MESSAGES})) {
-		if (! $gettext_obj) {
-			$gettext_obj=eval q{
+	    	*gettext=sub {
+			my $gettext_obj=eval q{
 				use Locale::gettext q{textdomain};
 				Locale::gettext->domain('ikiwiki')
 			};
-			if ($@) {
-				print STDERR "$@";
-				$gettext_obj=undef;
+
+			if ($gettext_obj) {
+				$gettext_obj->get(shift);
+			}
+			else {
 				return shift;
 			}
-		}
-		return $gettext_obj->get(shift);
+		};
 	}
 	else {
-		return shift;
+		*gettext=sub { return shift };
 	}
 }
 
+sub gettext {
+	define_gettext();
+	gettext(@_);
+}
+
 sub yesno ($) {
 	my $val=shift;
 
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 7f8257813..126c1826b 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ ikiwiki (3.15) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     name, to support several cases including mercurial's long user
     names on the RecentChanges page, and urls with spaces being handled
     by the 404 plugin.
+  * Optimise use of gettext, and avoid ugly warnings if Locale::gettext
+    is not available. Closes: #532285
 
  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:03:41 -0400
 
diff --git a/t/basewiki_brokenlinks.t b/t/basewiki_brokenlinks.t
index 2871b1dd2..fd0037492 100755
--- a/t/basewiki_brokenlinks.t
+++ b/t/basewiki_brokenlinks.t
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ ok(! system("make -s ikiwiki.out"));
 ok(! system("make extra_install DESTDIR=`pwd`/t/tmp/install PREFIX=/usr >/dev/null"));
 
 foreach my $plugin ("", "listdirectives") {
-	ok(! system("LC_ALL=C perl -I. ./ikiwiki.out -rebuild -plugin brokenlinks ".
+	ok(! system("perl -I. ./ikiwiki.out -rebuild -plugin brokenlinks ".
 			# always enabled because pages link to it conditionally,
 			# which brokenlinks cannot handle properly
 			"-plugin smiley ".
diff --git a/t/permalink.t b/t/permalink.t
index c326e8d27..b49b98338 100755
--- a/t/permalink.t
+++ b/t/permalink.t
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ use Test::More 'no_plan';
 
 ok(! system("mkdir t/tmp"));
 ok(! system("make -s ikiwiki.out"));
-ok(! system("LC_ALL=C perl -I. ./ikiwiki.out -plugin inline -url=http://example.com -cgiurl=http://example.com/ikiwiki.cgi -rss -atom -underlaydir=underlays/basewiki -templatedir=templates t/tinyblog t/tmp/out"));
+ok(! system("perl -I. ./ikiwiki.out -plugin inline -url=http://example.com -cgiurl=http://example.com/ikiwiki.cgi -rss -atom -underlaydir=underlays/basewiki -templatedir=templates t/tinyblog t/tmp/out"));
 # This guid should never, ever change, for any reason whatsoever!
 my $guid="http://example.com/post/";
 ok(length `grep '<guid>$guid</guid>' t/tmp/out/index.rss`);