diff --git a/src/aspell/rclaspell.cpp b/src/aspell/rclaspell.cpp
index b18c6179..65c42f85 100644
--- a/src/aspell/rclaspell.cpp
+++ b/src/aspell/rclaspell.cpp
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #ifndef TEST_RCLASPELL
 #ifndef lint
-static char rcsid[] = "@(#$Id: rclaspell.cpp,v 1.8 2007-02-07 16:31:42 dockes Exp $ (C) 2006 J.F.Dockes";
+static char rcsid[] = "@(#$Id: rclaspell.cpp,v 1.9 2007-08-07 08:26:40 dockes Exp $ (C) 2006 J.F.Dockes";
 #endif
 #ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H
 #include "autoconfig.h"
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ bool Aspell::init(string &reason)
     // Language: we get this from the configuration, else from the NLS
     // environment. The aspell language names used for selecting language 
     // definition files (used to create dictionaries) are like en, fr
-    if (!m_config->getConfParam("aspellLanguage", m_lang)) {
+    if (!m_config->getConfParam("aspellLanguage", m_lang) || m_lang.empty()) {
 	string lang = "en";
 	const char *cp;
 	if ((cp = getenv("LC_ALL")))
diff --git a/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in b/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
index c54acc99..2ab405f6 100644
--- a/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
+++ b/src/sampleconf/recoll.conf.in
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# @(#$Id: recoll.conf.in,v 1.18 2007-07-10 09:24:13 dockes Exp $  (C) 2004 J.F.Dockes
+# @(#$Id: recoll.conf.in,v 1.19 2007-08-07 08:26:40 dockes Exp $  (C) 2004 J.F.Dockes
 #
 # Recoll default configuration file. This typically lives in
 # @prefix@/share/recoll/examples and provides default values. You can
@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@ skippedNames = #* bin CVS  Cache cache* caughtspam  tmp .thumbnails .svn \
 # is empty
 # skippedPaths = 
 # Same for real time indexing. The idea here is that there is stuff that
-# you might want to initially index but not monitor:
+# you might want to initially index but not monitor. If daemSkippedPaths is
+# not set, the daemon uses skippedPaths.
 #daemSkippedPaths = 
 
 # Debug messages. 3 is errors/warnings only. 4 would be quite verbose.