Reader question:

Please explain “sugar coating it” in this sentence: Thanks for an honest report and not sugar coating it.

My comments:

First, sugar coating.

When you get ill and take medicine, you’ll notice that many pills taste sweet.

Medicines should taste bitter, right? Right, and that’s why pills taste sweet – drug companies since who knows when have been putting a thin layer of sugar over the pills to sweeten our pill-taking experience.

In other words, they’ve been sugar coating the pill – like, putting a coat (of sugar) over it.

That’s sugar coating a pill, alright, but the question here is: Can one sugar coat a report?

Well, for instance, if the local basketball team lost a match by 48 to 89, i.e. by a big margin. For the local reporter to report it as a rout (big loss) would be telling it as it is. It’s a debacle as a matter of fact, quite an embarrassment if you’re a fan.

However, if your local reporter keep going on about things like both teams played hard, the home team learned a lot, young players gained experience and they lost to a much better team, that’s sugar coating it, trying to make the loss appear easier to take.

Hence in the above example, when a reporter makes “an honest report and not sugar coating it”, he’s thanked – for telling a straight story instead of twisting and turning a harsh reality into something pleasant and even appealing.

Alright, here are two “sugar coating” examples from the Web:

1. Question #3 – Tell Me About a Weakness. This one is a toughie even for the interview savvy. You have to walk the tightrope of staying positive when you are describing your work weakness without totally sugar-coating your reply. You need to describe your weakness honestly, which shows good character, while showing humility for the situation. Detail how your weakness can affect the department in a realistic way both negatively and positively. Be sure to close your answer by pointing out how you have addressed/overcome your weakness.

- How to Ace the Interview Questions, EHow.com.

2. My body began falling apart a decade ago, and I had to quit even part-time paid work in 1991. Many joints, muscles and tendons hurt, so I am never comfortable sitting in a “standard” chair. I’m dizzy, and tend to fall over. My body can’t tolerate exercise or repetitive motion: a stroll around the block requires an hour’s rest while leafing through a magazine puts my hands out of commission for half a day. My brain, thankfully, developed a rapid-forgetting technique so I’m not overwhelmed by chronic pain. Unfortunately, this also means I may forget my topic in mid-sentence. After years of doctors saying it was all in my head, they now call it “fibromyalgia” or “chronic fatigue syndrome.”

And so I’ve been led to change many aspects of my daily life. The first big change was denial, guilt, and self-doubt. I was sure that, if I only developed a more positive mental attitude, I’d get better. Now, I’m realizing this negative perspective results from our society’s attitudes. In feminist consciousness-raising groups, I learned that women share guilt, self-blame, and learned helplessness because we share growing up in a society where female is not “normal.”

I’ve come to understand that the American way of health adds to the pain of illness and disability: that “disability” is, like “femininity,” a notion compounded of biology and society. Gallons of ink have been used to debate the correct terminology - I call myself “disabled” or “sick.” (Euphemisms like “differently abled” or “physically challenged” sugar coat my experience.) But it is not just a word game, because it is hard to put on a filthy, tattered coat when you can hide your shivering.

I denied I was disabled because I did not want to accept the stereotypes that ride along with the label - and who would want to call themselves incompetent, worthless, imprisoned.

- Jesse Kaysen: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Wheelchair, WWCoCo.com.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

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