diff --git a/contrib/simplemerge b/contrib/simplemerge
index 12e2e5cd577792b6123ce2158736cb5130731970_Y29udHJpYi9zaW1wbGVtZXJnZQ==..d6b7c4e77bb414fa27fed41e834423fca7d6ce63_Y29udHJpYi9zaW1wbGVtZXJnZQ== 100644
--- a/contrib/simplemerge
+++ b/contrib/simplemerge
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
            (b'h', b'help', None, _(b'display help and exit')),
            (b'q', b'quiet', None, _(b'suppress output'))]
 
-usage = _('''simplemerge [OPTS] LOCAL BASE OTHER
+usage = _(b'''simplemerge [OPTS] LOCAL BASE OTHER
 
     Simple three-way file merge utility with a minimal feature set.
 
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
     """Exception raised on errors in parsing the command line."""
 
 def showhelp():
-    pycompat.stdout.write(usage.encode('utf8'))
+    pycompat.stdout.write(usage)
     pycompat.stdout.write(b'\noptions:\n')
 
     out_opts = []