diff --git a/common/config-file.cpp b/common/config-file.cpp
index af991b931d0..eef70ef1b94 100644
--- a/common/config-file.cpp
+++ b/common/config-file.cpp
@@ -32,19 +32,6 @@
 
 namespace Common {
 
-static char *ltrim(char *t) {
-	while (isspace(*t))
-		t++;
-	return t;
-}
-
-static char *rtrim(char *t) {
-	int l = strlen(t) - 1;
-	while (l >= 0 && isspace(t[l]))
-		t[l--] = 0;
-	return t;
-}
-
 /**
  * Check whether the given string is a valid section or key name.
  * For that, it must only consist of letters, numbers, dashes and
diff --git a/common/config-manager.cpp b/common/config-manager.cpp
index 0f80e5c84f8..05a1b224044 100644
--- a/common/config-manager.cpp
+++ b/common/config-manager.cpp
@@ -45,19 +45,6 @@ DECLARE_SINGLETON(Common::ConfigManager);
 
 #define MAXLINELEN 256
 
-static char *ltrim(char *t) {
-	while (isspace(*t))
-		t++;
-	return t;
-}
-
-static char *rtrim(char *t) {
-	int l = strlen(t) - 1;
-	while (l >= 0 && isspace(t[l]))
-		t[l--] = 0;
-	return t;
-}
-
 static bool isValidDomainName(const Common::String &domName) {
 	const char *p = domName.c_str();
 	while (*p && (isalnum(*p) || *p == '-' || *p == '_'))
diff --git a/common/str.cpp b/common/str.cpp
index ad2367fb416..be0144954bc 100644
--- a/common/str.cpp
+++ b/common/str.cpp
@@ -431,5 +431,21 @@ String operator +(const String &x, const char *y) {
 	return temp;
 }
 
+char *ltrim(char *t) {
+	while (isspace(*t))
+		t++;
+	return t;
+}
+
+char *rtrim(char *t) {
+	int l = strlen(t) - 1;
+	while (l >= 0 && isspace(t[l]))
+		t[l--] = 0;
+	return t;
+}
+
+char *trim(char *t) {
+	return rtrim(ltrim(t));
+}
 
 }	// End of namespace Common
diff --git a/common/str.h b/common/str.h
index c611b3df87d..c7c9b466b18 100644
--- a/common/str.h
+++ b/common/str.h
@@ -194,6 +194,11 @@ String operator +(const String &x, const char *y);
 bool operator == (const char *x, const String &y);
 bool operator != (const char *x, const String &y);
 
+// Utility functions to remove leading and trailing whitespaces
+extern char *ltrim(char *t);
+extern char *rtrim(char *t);
+extern char *trim(char *t);
+
 class StringList : public Array<String> {
 public:
 	void push_back(const char *str) {
diff --git a/engines/agi/predictive.cpp b/engines/agi/predictive.cpp
index e65e1bf2b45..731384b5c7d 100644
--- a/engines/agi/predictive.cpp
+++ b/engines/agi/predictive.cpp
@@ -315,19 +315,6 @@ bool AgiEngine::predictiveDialog(void) {
 	return rc;
 }
 
-static char *ltrim(char *t) {
-	while (isspace(*t))
-		t++;
-	return t;
-}
-
-static char *rtrim(char *t) {
-	int l = strlen(t) - 1;
-	while (l >= 0 && isspace(t[l]))
-		t[l--] = 0;
-	return t;
-}
-
 #define MAXLINELEN 80
 
 void AgiEngine::loadDict(void) {
@@ -343,7 +330,7 @@ void AgiEngine::loadDict(void) {
 
 	while (!in.eos() && in.readLine(buf, MAXLINELEN)) {
 		// Skip leading & trailing whitespaces
-		char *word = rtrim(ltrim(buf));
+		char *word = Common::trim(buf);
 
 		// Skip empty lines
 		if (*word == 0)
diff --git a/engines/queen/logic.cpp b/engines/queen/logic.cpp
index 9973386b651..f7a23eeb3dc 100644
--- a/engines/queen/logic.cpp
+++ b/engines/queen/logic.cpp
@@ -44,20 +44,6 @@
 
 namespace Queen {
 
-static Common::String trim(const Common::String &s) {
-	const char *p;
-
-	p = s.c_str();
-	while (*p == ' ') ++p;
-	int start = p - s.c_str();
-
-	p = s.c_str() + s.size() - 1;
-	while (p != s.c_str() && *p == ' ') --p;
-	int end = p - s.c_str();
-
-	return Common::String(s.c_str() + start, end - start + 1);
-}
-
 Logic::Logic(QueenEngine *vm)
 	: _credits(NULL), _objectData(NULL), _roomData(NULL), _sfxName(NULL),
 	_itemData(NULL), _graphicData(NULL), _walkOffData(NULL), _objectDescription(NULL),
@@ -227,16 +213,16 @@ void Logic::readQueenJas() {
 
 	_joeResponse.push_back("");
 	for (i = 1; i <= JOE_RESPONSE_MAX; i++) {
-		_joeResponse.push_back(queen2jas.nextLine());
-	}
+		char *defaultResponse = queen2jas.nextLine();
 
-	// Spanish version adds some space characters (0x20) at the beginning
-	// and the end of the journal button captions. As the engine computes
-	// the text width to center it, we need to trim those strings.
-	if (_vm->resource()->getLanguage() == Common::ES_ESP) {
-		for (i = 30; i <= 35; i++) {
-			_joeResponse[i] = trim(_joeResponse[i]);
+		// In the spanish version, captions of journal buttons have leading & trailing
+		// whitespaces (they probably did it that way to center the texts). As we do
+		// differently (see code in journal.cpp), we remove these extra characters here.
+		if (_vm->resource()->getLanguage() == Common::ES_ESP && i >= 30 && i <= 35) {
+			defaultResponse = Common::trim(defaultResponse);
 		}
+
+		_joeResponse.push_back(defaultResponse);
 	}
 
 	_aAnim.push_back("");