echo hangs with single quotes?

[Kevet Duncombe]

I've been getting unexpected hangs in the make on Ubuntu Dapper which
identifies itself as "GNU Make 3.81beta4". I finally narrowed it down to
a very simple test case. If I try running this makefile it prints the
command then hangs without executing it.

hang:
        echo 'hello world'

Changing the single quotes to double quotes makes it work properly. Does
this ring a bell with anyone?