diff --git a/Modules/_json.c b/Modules/_json.c
index 9a3708d..2e39525 100644
--- a/Modules/_json.c
+++ b/Modules/_json.c
@@ -484,7 +484,7 @@
 }
 
 PyDoc_STRVAR(pydoc_scanstring,
-    "scanstring(basestring, end, strict=True) -> (bytes, end)\n"
+    "scanstring(string, end, strict=True) -> (string, end)\n"
     "\n"
     "Scan the string s for a JSON string. End is the index of the\n"
     "character in s after the quote that started the JSON string.\n"
@@ -512,7 +512,7 @@
     }
     else {
         PyErr_Format(PyExc_TypeError,
-                     "first argument must be a string or bytes, not %.80s",
+                     "first argument must be a string, not %.80s",
                      Py_TYPE(pystr)->tp_name);
         return NULL;
     }
@@ -520,7 +520,7 @@
 }
 
 PyDoc_STRVAR(pydoc_encode_basestring_ascii,
-    "encode_basestring_ascii(basestring) -> bytes\n"
+    "encode_basestring_ascii(string) -> string\n"
     "\n"
     "Return an ASCII-only JSON representation of a Python string"
 );