diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f8b583a..b9c8aaf 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -163,10 +163,18 @@ Responsible for loading the values parsed from `process.env` into the configurat
   //
   // Can also specify a separator for nested keys (instead of the default ':')
   //
+  nconf.env('__');
+  // Get the value of the env variable 'database__host'
+  var dbHost = nconf.get('database:host'); 
+
+  //
+  // Or use both options
+  //
   nconf.env({
     separator: '__',
-    filter: ['database__host', 'only', 'load', 'these', 'values', 'from', 'process.env']
-  });  
+    filter: ['database__host', 'only', 'load', 'these', 'values']
+  });
+  var dbHost = nconf.get('database:host');
 ```
 
 ### Literal
diff --git a/lib/nconf/stores/env.js b/lib/nconf/stores/env.js
index f5e541c..1aacd47 100644
--- a/lib/nconf/stores/env.js
+++ b/lib/nconf/stores/env.js
@@ -23,10 +23,12 @@ var Env = exports.Env = function (options) {
   this.readOnly  = true;
   this.filter    = options.filter || [];
   this.separator = options.separator || '';
-  // Backwards compatibility
   if (options instanceof Array) {
     this.filter = options;
   }
+  if (typeof(options) === 'string') {
+    this.separator = options;
+  }
 };
 
 // Inherit from the Memory store
diff --git a/test/fixtures/scripts/nconf-nested-env.js b/test/fixtures/scripts/nconf-nested-env.js
index 2752c8c..cfc3365 100644
--- a/test/fixtures/scripts/nconf-nested-env.js
+++ b/test/fixtures/scripts/nconf-nested-env.js
@@ -6,6 +6,6 @@
  *
  */
  
-var nconf = require('../../../lib/nconf').env({separator: '_'});
+var nconf = require('../../../lib/nconf').env('_');
 
 process.stdout.write(nconf.get('SOME:THING'));