diff --git a/spawn.c b/spawn.c
index 0342ea03..90cda757 100644
--- a/spawn.c
+++ b/spawn.c
@@ -229,8 +229,9 @@ spawn_pane(struct spawn_context *sc, char **cause)
 	if (sc->cwd != NULL) {
 		cwd = format_single(item, sc->cwd, c, target->s, NULL, NULL);
 		if (*cwd != '/') {
-			xasprintf(&new_cwd, "%s/%s", server_client_get_cwd(c,
-			    target->s), cwd);
+			xasprintf(&new_cwd, "%s%s%s",
+			    server_client_get_cwd(c, target->s),
+			    *cwd != '\0' ? "/" : "", cwd);
 			free(cwd);
 			cwd = new_cwd;
 		}
diff --git a/tmux.1 b/tmux.1
index f3764da0..2afd2104 100644
--- a/tmux.1
+++ b/tmux.1
@@ -570,7 +570,7 @@ For
 this typically means quoted (such as
 .Ql neww \[aq];\[aq] splitw )
 or escaped (such as
-.Ql neww \e\e\e\e; splitw ) .
+.Ql neww \e; splitw ) .
 .It
 Individual semicolons or trailing semicolons that should be interpreted as
 arguments should be escaped twice: once according to the shell conventions and
@@ -578,15 +578,15 @@ a second time for
 .Nm ;
 for example:
 .Bd -literal -offset indent
-$ tmux neww \[aq]foo\e\e;\[aq] bar
-$ tmux neww foo\e\e\e\e; bar
+$ tmux neww \[aq]foo\e;\[aq] bar
+$ tmux neww foo\e\e\e; bar
 .Ed
 .It
 Semicolons that are not individual tokens or trailing another token should only
 be escaped once according to shell conventions; for example:
 .Bd -literal -offset indent
 $ tmux neww \[aq]foo-;-bar\[aq]
-$ tmux neww foo-\e\e;-bar
+$ tmux neww foo-\e;-bar
 .Ed
 .El
 .Pp