diff --git a/Lib/uuid.py b/Lib/uuid.py
index 5b24e2c29ec..e96e7e034cc 100644
--- a/Lib/uuid.py
+++ b/Lib/uuid.py
@@ -131,7 +131,8 @@ class UUID(object):
         """
 
         if [hex, bytes, bytes_le, fields, int].count(None) != 4:
-            raise TypeError('need one of hex, bytes, bytes_le, fields, or int')
+            raise TypeError('one of the hex, bytes, bytes_le, fields, '
+                            'or int arguments must be given')
         if hex is not None:
             hex = hex.replace('urn:', '').replace('uuid:', '')
             hex = hex.strip('{}').replace('-', '')