diff --git a/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/rdiscount_parser.rb b/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/rdiscount_parser.rb
index ca868d7a..bfe1a7ca 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/rdiscount_parser.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/converters/markdown/rdiscount_parser.rb
@@ -24,7 +24,9 @@ module Jekyll
         private
         def replace_generated_toc(rd, html, toc_token)
           if rd.generate_toc && html.include?(toc_token)
-            html.gsub(toc_token, rd.toc_content.force_encoding('utf-8'))
+            utf8_toc = rd.toc_content
+            utf8_toc.force_encoding('utf-8') if utf8_toc.respond_to?(:force_encoding)
+            html.gsub(toc_token, utf8_toc)
           else
             html
           end
diff --git a/lib/jekyll/core_ext.rb b/lib/jekyll/core_ext.rb
index 00f64fcf..1a7b1816 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/core_ext.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/core_ext.rb
@@ -69,11 +69,3 @@ module Enumerable
     any? { |exp| File.fnmatch?(exp, e) }
   end
 end
-
-if RUBY_VERSION < "1.9"
-  class String
-    def force_encoding(enc)
-      self
-    end
-  end
-end