# Helps with English: "cosmetic sugar" expression ? No it is not that!

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024>\
**Category:** Offtopic\
**Created:** [August 26, 2021, 9:37am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024 "2021-08-26T09:37:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sylvaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sylvaticus/32/203883_2.png) [@sylvaticus](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sylvaticus)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 9:37am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024/1 "2021-08-26T09:37:18Z")

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Arghh… I have one English expression in mind but I don’t remember it:

“This [a certain feature, here the possibility to use Unicode in variable names] seems just _cosmetic sugar_, but it really helps…”

Here I want to say that the given feature seems just some additional but minor improvement, something that is only superficially useful… there is an English expression for that, but I can’t remember it. It doesn’t seem to be “cosmetic sugar”…

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**Author:** ![Fliks](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/fliks/32/2494_2.png) [@Fliks](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Fliks)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 9:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024/2 "2021-08-26T09:44:25Z")

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Do you mean syntactic sugar?

> **[Syntactic sugar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_sugar)**
>
> In computer science, syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express. It makes the language "sweeter" for human use: things can be expressed more clearly, more concisely, or in an alternative style that some may prefer. Syntactic sugar is usually a shorthand for a common operation that could also be expressed in an alternate, more verbose, form: The programmer has a choice of whether to use the shorter form or the longer form, b...

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**Author:** ![tlienart](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tlienart/32/7640_2.png) [@tlienart](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tlienart)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 8:31am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024/3 "2021-08-28T08:31:51Z")

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_cosmetic sugar_ is a pretty cool name though, could be a Linux distro

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2021, 11:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/helps-with-english-cosmetic-sugar-expression-no-it-is-not-that/67024/4 "2021-08-30T11:16:53Z")

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… or a rock band. 🕶