diff --git a/lib/liquid/standardfilters.rb b/lib/liquid/standardfilters.rb
index 1470243c..21bed3c5 100644
--- a/lib/liquid/standardfilters.rb
+++ b/lib/liquid/standardfilters.rb
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ require 'bigdecimal'
 
 module Liquid
   module StandardFilters
-    MAX_INT = (1 << 31) - 1
+    MAX_I32 = (1 << 31) - 1
     HTML_ESCAPE = {
       '&' => '&amp;',
       '>' => '&gt;',
@@ -239,9 +239,9 @@ module Liquid
       wordlist = begin
         input.split(" ", words + 1)
       rescue RangeError
-        raise if words + 1 < MAX_INT
-        # e.g. integer #{words} too big to convert to `int'
-        raise Liquid::ArgumentError, "integer #{words} too big for truncatewords"
+        # integer too big for String#split, but we can semantically assume no truncation is needed
+        return input if words + 1 > MAX_I32
+        raise # unexpected error
       end
       return input if wordlist.length <= words
 
diff --git a/test/integration/standard_filter_test.rb b/test/integration/standard_filter_test.rb
index 3b2cffa3..519a7f3f 100644
--- a/test/integration/standard_filter_test.rb
+++ b/test/integration/standard_filter_test.rb
@@ -227,10 +227,8 @@ class StandardFiltersTest < Minitest::Test
     assert_equal('one two three...', @filters.truncatewords("one  two\tthree\nfour", 3))
     assert_equal('one two...', @filters.truncatewords("one two three four", 2))
     assert_equal('one...', @filters.truncatewords("one two three four", 0))
-    exception = assert_raises(Liquid::ArgumentError) do
-      @filters.truncatewords("one two three four", 1 << 31)
-    end
-    assert_equal("Liquid error: integer #{1 << 31} too big for truncatewords", exception.message)
+    assert_equal('one two three four', @filters.truncatewords("one two three four", 1 << 31))
+    assert_equal('one...', @filters.truncatewords("one two three four", -(1 << 32)))
   end
 
   def test_strip_html