syntactic sugar

syntactic sugar n.  [coined by Peter Landin] Features added
   to a language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for
   humans, features which do not affect the expressiveness of the
   formalism (compare {chrome}).  Used esp. when there is an
   obvious and trivial translation of the `sugar' feature into
   other constructs already present in the notation.  C's `a[i]'
   notation is syntactic sugar for `*(a + i)'.  "Syntactic sugar
   causes cancer of the semicolon." -- Alan Perlis.

   The variants `syntactic saccharin' and `syntactic syrup' are
   also recorded.  These denote something even more gratuitous, in
   that syntactic sugar serves a purpose (making something more
   acceptable to humans), but syntactic saccharin or syrup serve no
   purpose at all.  Compare {candygrammar}, {syntactic salt}.