diff --git a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
index f0aabb68a..7b8038b3b 100644
--- a/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
+++ b/app/helpers/application_helper.rb
@@ -311,6 +311,7 @@ module ApplicationHelper
   end
 
   def direction_for(string)
+    return '' unless string.respond_to?(:cleaned_is_rtl?)
     string.cleaned_is_rtl? ? 'rtl' : ''
   end