diff --git a/bash_completion b/bash_completion
index 9cee4250..e3b782c0 100644
--- a/bash_completion
+++ b/bash_completion
@@ -1260,9 +1260,12 @@ _known_hosts_real()
         local OIFS=$IFS IFS=$'\n'
         local -a tmpkh
         # expand paths (if present) to global and user known hosts files
-        tmpkh=( $( sed -ne 's/^[ \t]*\([Gg][Ll][Oo][Bb][Aa][Ll]\|[Uu][Ss][Ee][Rr]\)[Kk][Nn][Oo][Ww][Nn][Hh][Oo][Ss][Tt][Ss][Ff][Ii][Ll][Ee]['"$'\t '"']*\(.*\)$/"\2"/p' "${config[@]}" ) )
-        for i in "${tmpkh[@]}"; do
-            i=$( echo "${i//\"/}" )
+        # TODO(?): try to make known hosts files with more than one consecutive
+        #          spaces in their name work (watch out for ~ expansion
+        #          breakage! Alioth#311595)
+        tmpkh=( $( sed -ne 's/^[ \t]*\([Gg][Ll][Oo][Bb][Aa][Ll]\|[Uu][Ss][Ee][Rr]\)[Kk][Nn][Oo][Ww][Nn][Hh][Oo][Ss][Tt][Ss][Ff][Ii][Ll][Ee]['"$'\t '"']*\(.*\)$/\2/p' "${config[@]}" ) )
+        for i in "${tmpkh[@]//\"/}"; do
+            i=$( eval echo "$i" ) # expand ~
             [ -r "$i" ] && kh=( "${kh[@]}" "$i" )
         done
         IFS=$OIFS