Sugarcoat

Some children’s medicine is coated with a thin film
of sugar to help them take it.
(Photo: Karolina Grabowska/Pexels | Text: David/ArtisanEnglish.jp)

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Word of the Day: Sugarcoat

Any Julie Andrews fans out there? Come on, raise your umbrellas high. I know you’re out there.

While as Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews sang about how a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

These days, with such high rates of childhood obesity in the Western world, that would probably get her cancelled.

However, we can sugarcoat things and say that getting kicked off social media may be a blessing in disguise.

You see, instead of a whole spoonful of sugar, we can simply sugarcoat things to make them seem more positive, pleasant and palatable.

I won’t mention the fewer calories because, well, who counts calories anymore?

We sugarcoat things all the time to fool ourselves and others into doing something we (and they) don’t want to do.

Have you ever told your husband after an accident that it was just a ‘small dent?’

Of course, you have.

Sometimes politicians try to sugarcoat tax increases by saying they’ll invest more in healthcare or pensions.

Naturally, we see right through the lie but accept it anyway because it feels better to fool ourselves than to allow others to fool us.

In real terms, some children’s medicine is coated with a thin film of sugar to help them take it.

I used to suck the sugar off and then spit out the pill.

It was nice for a while before I realized I still had to take it.

That was a hard pill to swallow, I’ll tell you.

The next time someone starts talking about global warming, try to sugarcoat it by telling them how we’d all enjoy warmer winters.

This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.