diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/qt-4.x/4.8/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/qt-4.x/4.8/default.nix
index 4215404a9f6..8c8e311a93e 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/qt-4.x/4.8/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/qt-4.x/4.8/default.nix
@@ -152,7 +152,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   enableParallelBuilding = false;
 
-  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = "-std=gnu++98"
+  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE =
+    optionalString stdenv.isLinux "-std=gnu++98" # gnu++ in (Obj)C flags is no good on Darwin
     + optionalString (stdenv.isFreeBSD || stdenv.isDarwin)
       " -I${glib.dev}/include/glib-2.0 -I${glib.out}/lib/glib-2.0/include"
     + optionalString stdenv.isDarwin " -I${libcxx}/include/c++/v1";