diff --git a/Doc/howto/logging-cookbook.rst b/Doc/howto/logging-cookbook.rst
index 9511d59327c..5e9321aea9b 100644
--- a/Doc/howto/logging-cookbook.rst
+++ b/Doc/howto/logging-cookbook.rst
@@ -1377,7 +1377,7 @@ works::
         A simple handler for logging events. It runs in the listener process and
         dispatches events to loggers based on the name in the received record,
         which then get dispatched, by the logging system, to the handlers
-        configured for those records.
+        configured for those loggers.
         """
         def handle(self, record):
             logger = logging.getLogger(record.name)
diff --git a/Objects/object.c b/Objects/object.c
index 5bafbc00e0b..c8c1861a4df 100644
--- a/Objects/object.c
+++ b/Objects/object.c
@@ -763,7 +763,9 @@ _Py_HashBytes(unsigned char *p, Py_ssize_t len)
       We make the hash of the empty string be 0, rather than using
       (prefix ^ suffix), since this slightly obfuscates the hash secret
     */
+#ifdef Py_DEBUG
     assert(_Py_HashSecret_Initialized);
+#endif
     if (len == 0) {
         return 0;
     }
diff --git a/Objects/unicodeobject.c b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
index bff33d9ad04..7e73bc226c1 100644
--- a/Objects/unicodeobject.c
+++ b/Objects/unicodeobject.c
@@ -11335,7 +11335,9 @@ unicode_hash(PyObject *self)
     Py_ssize_t len;
     Py_uhash_t x;
 
+#ifdef Py_DEBUG
     assert(_Py_HashSecret_Initialized);
+#endif
     if (_PyUnicode_HASH(self) != -1)
         return _PyUnicode_HASH(self);
     if (PyUnicode_READY(self) == -1)