diff --git a/myisam/ft_stopwords.c b/myisam/ft_stopwords.c
index 30a1f6e5dc8..126dddf0e5f 100644
--- a/myisam/ft_stopwords.c
+++ b/myisam/ft_stopwords.c
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ static int FT_STOPWORD_cmp(void* cmp_arg __attribute__((unused)),
 static void FT_STOPWORD_free(FT_STOPWORD *w, TREE_FREE action,
                              void *arg __attribute__((unused)))
 {
-  if (action == free_free && ft_stopword_file)
+  if (action == free_free)
     my_free(w->pos, MYF(0));
 }
 
@@ -55,7 +55,9 @@ int ft_init_stopwords()
     if (!(stopwords3=(TREE *)my_malloc(sizeof(TREE),MYF(0))))
       return -1;
     init_tree(stopwords3,0,0,sizeof(FT_STOPWORD),(qsort_cmp2)&FT_STOPWORD_cmp,
-              0, (tree_element_free)&FT_STOPWORD_free, NULL);
+              0,
+              (ft_stopword_file ? (tree_element_free)&FT_STOPWORD_free : 0),
+              NULL);
   }
 
   if (ft_stopword_file)
@@ -102,6 +104,7 @@ err0:
       if (ft_add_stopword(*sws))
         return -1;
     }
+    ft_stopword_file="(built-in)"; /* for SHOW VARIABLES */
   }
   return 0;
 }
diff --git a/mysql-test/r/fulltext_var.result b/mysql-test/r/fulltext_var.result
index a72ba073b70..dda8e332fba 100644
--- a/mysql-test/r/fulltext_var.result
+++ b/mysql-test/r/fulltext_var.result
@@ -4,4 +4,4 @@ ft_boolean_syntax	+ -><()~*:""&|
 ft_min_word_len	4
 ft_max_word_len	254
 ft_max_word_len_for_sort	20
-ft_stopword_file	
+ft_stopword_file	(built-in)
diff --git a/sql/set_var.cc b/sql/set_var.cc
index 9976f13a469..a7692cbe73a 100644
--- a/sql/set_var.cc
+++ b/sql/set_var.cc
@@ -415,7 +415,7 @@ struct show_var_st init_vars[]= {
   {"ft_min_word_len",         (char*) &ft_min_word_len,             SHOW_LONG},
   {"ft_max_word_len",         (char*) &ft_max_word_len,             SHOW_LONG},
   {"ft_max_word_len_for_sort",(char*) &ft_max_word_len_for_sort,    SHOW_LONG},
-  {"ft_stopword_file",        (char*) &ft_stopword_file,            SHOW_CHAR},
+  {"ft_stopword_file",        (char*) &ft_stopword_file,            SHOW_CHAR_PTR},
   {"have_bdb",		      (char*) &have_berkeley_db,	    SHOW_HAVE},
   {"have_innodb",	      (char*) &have_innodb,		    SHOW_HAVE},
   {"have_isam",	      	      (char*) &have_isam,		    SHOW_HAVE},