diff --git a/syntax/sh.nanorc b/syntax/sh.nanorc
index 000fb540c29372c0fc127eb0a6dc0be362a57519..cf251858f4fa90e4ba59ecfcf0dccf8f796fcdad 100644
--- a/syntax/sh.nanorc
+++ b/syntax/sh.nanorc
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ color green "[{}():;|`$<>!=&\\]" "(\]|\[)"
 color green "-[Ldefgruwx]\>"
 color green "-(eq|ne|gt|lt|ge|le|s|n|z)\>"
 color brightblue "\<(awk|cat|cd|ch(grp|mod|own)|cp|cut|echo|env|grep|head|install|ln|make|mkdir|mv|popd|printf|pushd|rm|rmdir|sed|set|sort|tail|tar|touch|umask|unset)\>"
+color normal "[.-]tar\>"
 
 # Basic variable names (no braces).
 color brightred "\$[-0-9@*#?$!]" "\$[[:alpha:]_][[:alnum:]_]*"