diff --git a/include/mapnik/expression_grammar_impl.hpp b/include/mapnik/expression_grammar_impl.hpp
index 7f86caca7..dda4c15f0 100644
--- a/include/mapnik/expression_grammar_impl.hpp
+++ b/include/mapnik/expression_grammar_impl.hpp
@@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ expression_grammar<Iterator>::expression_grammar(std::string const& encoding)
         ;
 
     expr = logical_expr [_val = _1]
-        | ustring [_val = unicode(_1)]
+        //| ustring [_val = unicode(_1)]
         ;
 
     logical_expr = not_expr [_val = _1]
@@ -254,10 +254,10 @@ expression_grammar<Iterator>::expression_grammar(std::string const& encoding)
         | global_attr [_val = construct<mapnik::global_attribute>( _1 )]
         | unary_function_expr [_val = _1]
         | binary_function_expr [_val = _1]
+        | '(' > logical_expr [_val = _1 ] > ')'
         //  TODO: this is a backward compatibility hack to allow unquoted strings
         | unquoted_ustring [_val = unicode(_1)]
         // ^ https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik/pull/3389
-        | '(' > logical_expr [_val = _1 ] > ')'
         ;
 
     unesc_char.add("\\a", '\a')("\\b", '\b')("\\f", '\f')("\\n", '\n')