diff --git a/blocks.js b/blocks.js
index 61d8b017..fb47993f 100644
--- a/blocks.js
+++ b/blocks.js
@@ -836,6 +836,7 @@ SyntaxElementMorph.prototype.labelPart = function (spec) {
                 null, // text
                 false, // numeric?
                 {
+                    'character' : ['character'],
                     'whitespace' : ['whitespace'],
                     'line' : ['line'],
                     'tab' : ['tab'],
diff --git a/threads.js b/threads.js
index 50abf781..3b7074e5 100644
--- a/threads.js
+++ b/threads.js
@@ -2148,6 +2148,9 @@ Process.prototype.reportTextSplit = function (string, delimiter) {
         break;
     case 'whitespace':
         return new List(str.trim().split(/[\t\r\n ]+/));
+    case 'character':
+        del = '';
+        break
     default:
         del = (delimiter || '').toString();
     }