diff --git a/static/js/alert_words.js b/static/js/alert_words.js
index 5d1f7da753..38b7a1d312 100644
--- a/static/js/alert_words.js
+++ b/static/js/alert_words.js
@@ -17,8 +17,8 @@ exports.process_message = function (message) {
 
     _.each(exports.words, function (word) {
         var clean = escape_user_regex(word);
-        var before_punctuation = '\\s|^|>|[\\(\\"]';
-        var after_punctuation = '\\s|$|<|[\\)\\"\\?:.,]';
+        var before_punctuation = '\\s|^|>|[\\(\\".,\';\\[]';
+        var after_punctuation = '\\s|$|<|[\\)\\"\\?!:.,\';\\]!]';
 
         var regex = new RegExp('(' + before_punctuation + ')' +
                                '(' + clean + ')' +
diff --git a/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py b/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
index 669fa3ae14..e97875883f 100644
--- a/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
+++ b/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
@@ -770,8 +770,8 @@ class AlertWordsNotificationProcessor(markdown.preprocessors.Preprocessor):
             realm_words = db_data['realm_alert_words']
             content = '\n'.join(lines).lower()
 
-            allowed_before_punctuation = "|".join([r'\s', '^', r'[\(\"]'])
-            allowed_after_punctuation = "|".join([r'\s', '$', r'[\)\"\?:.,]'])
+            allowed_before_punctuation = "|".join([r'\s', '^', r'[\(\".,\';\[]'])
+            allowed_after_punctuation = "|".join([r'\s', '$', r'[\)\"\?:.,\';\]!]'])
 
             for user_id, words in realm_words.iteritems():
                 for word in words: