diff --git a/21-constructivist/tf-21.py b/21-constructivist/tf-21.py
index 9403037..5e4c859 100755
--- a/21-constructivist/tf-21.py
+++ b/21-constructivist/tf-21.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def remove_stop_words(word_list):
             stop_words = f.read().split(',')
     except IOError as e:
         print "I/O error({0}) when opening ../stops_words.txt: {1}".format(e.errno, e.strerror)
-        return []
+        return word_list
 
     stop_words.extend(list(string.ascii_lowercase))
     return [w for w in word_list if not w in stop_words]