diff --git a/v2/ansible/module_utils/basic.py b/v2/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
index 79a0fab67b..b3cebf0ba5 100644
--- a/v2/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
+++ b/v2/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
@@ -1433,7 +1433,7 @@ class AnsibleModule(object):
         msg = None
         st_in = None
 
-        # Set a temporart env path if a prefix is passed
+        # Set a temporary env path if a prefix is passed
         env=os.environ
         if path_prefix:
             env['PATH']="%s:%s" % (path_prefix, env['PATH'])
@@ -1442,7 +1442,12 @@ class AnsibleModule(object):
         # in reporting later, which strips out things like
         # passwords from the args list
         if isinstance(args, basestring):
-            to_clean_args = shlex.split(args.encode('utf-8'))
+            if isinstance(args, unicode):
+                b_args = args.encode('utf-8')
+            else:
+                b_args = args
+            to_clean_args = shlex.split(b_args)
+            del b_args
         else:
             to_clean_args = args