diff --git a/lib/tokenize.cpp b/lib/tokenize.cpp
index e5000aa94..d35615700 100644
--- a/lib/tokenize.cpp
+++ b/lib/tokenize.cpp
@@ -8253,7 +8253,7 @@ void Tokenizer::syntaxError(const Token *tok, char c) const
 {
     printDebugOutput(0);
     throw InternalError(tok,
-                        std::string("Invalid number of character (") + c + ") " +
+                        std::string("Invalid number of character '") + c + "' " +
                         "when these macros are defined: '" + _configuration + "'.",
                         InternalError::SYNTAX);
 }
diff --git a/samples/syntaxError/out.txt b/samples/syntaxError/out.txt
index 5689c3a20..eafd9d47b 100644
--- a/samples/syntaxError/out.txt
+++ b/samples/syntaxError/out.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-[samples\syntaxError\bad.c:2]: (error) Invalid number of character ({) when these macros are defined: 'A'.
+[samples\syntaxError\bad.c:2]: (error) Invalid number of character '{' when these macros are defined: 'A'.
diff --git a/test/testtokenize.cpp b/test/testtokenize.cpp
index ea9f559ff..27e118696 100644
--- a/test/testtokenize.cpp
+++ b/test/testtokenize.cpp
@@ -4190,7 +4190,7 @@ private:
                 tokenizer.tokenize(istr, "test.cpp");
                 assertThrowFail(__FILE__, __LINE__);
             } catch (InternalError& e) {
-                ASSERT_EQUALS("Invalid number of character (() when these macros are defined: ''.", e.errorMessage);
+                ASSERT_EQUALS("Invalid number of character '(' when these macros are defined: ''.", e.errorMessage);
                 ASSERT_EQUALS("syntaxError", e.id);
                 ASSERT_EQUALS(2, e.token->linenr());
             }