diff --git a/src/configure.in b/src/configure.in
index 4b450ce..a8df119 100644
--- a/src/configure.in
+++ b/src/configure.in
@@ -46,10 +46,10 @@
 fi
 if test "$GCC" = yes; then
   dnl method that should work for nearly all versions
-  gccversion=`"$CC" -dumpversion`
+  gccversion=`$CC -dumpversion`
   if test "x$gccversion" = "x"; then
     dnl old method; fall-back for when -dumpversion doesn't work
-    gccversion=`"$CC" --version | sed -e '2,$d' -e 's/darwin.//' -e 's/^[[^0-9]]*\([[0-9]]\.[[0-9.]]*\).*$/\1/g'`
+    gccversion=`$CC --version | sed -e '2,$d' -e 's/darwin.//' -e 's/^[[^0-9]]*\([[0-9]]\.[[0-9.]]*\).*$/\1/g'`
   fi
   dnl version 4.0.1 was reported to cause trouble on Macintosh by Marcin Dalecki
   if test "$gccversion" = "3.0.1" -o "$gccversion" = "3.0.2" -o "$gccversion" = "4.0.1"; then
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
 dnl the version number of the clang in use.
 dnl Note that this does not work to get the version of clang 3.1 or 3.2.
 AC_MSG_CHECKING(for recent clang version)
-CLANG_VERSION_STRING=`"$CC" --version 2>/dev/null | sed  -n -e 's/^.*clang.*\([[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\).*$/\1/p'`
+CLANG_VERSION_STRING=`$CC --version 2>/dev/null | sed  -n -e 's/^.*clang.*\([[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\).*$/\1/p'`
 if test x"$CLANG_VERSION_STRING" != x"" ; then
   CLANG_MAJOR=`echo "$CLANG_VERSION_STRING" | sed -n -e 's/\([[0-9]][[0-9]]*\)\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*/\1/p'`
   CLANG_MINOR=`echo "$CLANG_VERSION_STRING" | sed -n -e 's/[[0-9]][[0-9]]*\.\([[0-9]][[0-9]]*\)\.[[0-9]][[0-9]]*/\1/p'`