diff --git a/Lib/httplib.py b/Lib/httplib.py
--- a/Lib/httplib.py
+++ b/Lib/httplib.py
@@ -723,7 +723,7 @@
         endpoint passed to set_tunnel. This is done by sending a HTTP CONNECT
         request to the proxy server when the connection is established.
 
-        This method must be called before the HTML connection has been
+        This method must be called before the HTTP connection has been
         established.
 
         The headers argument should be a mapping of extra HTTP headers
@@ -1129,7 +1129,7 @@
         "Accept arguments to set the host/port, since the superclass doesn't."
 
         if host is not None:
-            self._conn._set_hostport(host, port)
+            self._conn.host, self._conn.port = self._conn._get_hostport(host, port)
         self._conn.connect()
 
     def getfile(self):
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_httplib.py b/Lib/test/test_httplib.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_httplib.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_httplib.py
@@ -461,7 +461,11 @@
         self.assertEqual(httplib.responses[httplib.NOT_FOUND], "Not Found")
 
 
-class SourceAddressTest(TestCase):
+class TestServer(TestCase):
+    """A limited socket server for testing.
+
+    This is used by subclasses for testing http connection end points.
+    """
     def setUp(self):
         self.serv = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
         self.port = test_support.bind_port(self.serv)
@@ -476,6 +480,7 @@
         self.serv.close()
         self.serv = None
 
+class SourceAddressTest(TestServer):
     def testHTTPConnectionSourceAddress(self):
         self.conn = httplib.HTTPConnection(HOST, self.port,
                 source_address=('', self.source_port))
@@ -492,6 +497,22 @@
         # for an ssl_wrapped connect() to actually return from.
 
 
+class HTTPTest(TestServer):
+    def testHTTPConnection(self):
+        self.conn = httplib.HTTP(host=HOST, port=self.port, strict=None)
+        self.conn.connect()
+        self.assertEqual(self.conn._conn.host, HOST)
+        self.assertEqual(self.conn._conn.port, self.port)
+
+    def testHTTPWithConnectHostPost(self):
+        constructor_host = 'localhost'
+        constructor_port = '8080'
+        self.conn = httplib.HTTP(host=constructor_host, port=constructor_port)
+        self.conn.connect(host=HOST, port=self.port)
+        self.assertEqual(self.conn._conn.host, HOST)
+        self.assertEqual(self.conn._conn.port, self.port)
+
+
 class TimeoutTest(TestCase):
     PORT = None
 
@@ -537,6 +558,7 @@
         self.assertEqual(httpConn.sock.gettimeout(), 30)
         httpConn.close()
 
+
 class HTTPSTest(TestCase):
 
     def setUp(self):
@@ -713,7 +735,8 @@
 @test_support.reap_threads
 def test_main(verbose=None):
     test_support.run_unittest(HeaderTests, OfflineTest, BasicTest, TimeoutTest,
-                              HTTPSTest, SourceAddressTest, TunnelTests)
+                              HTTPTest, HTTPSTest, SourceAddressTest,
+                              TunnelTests)
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     test_main()