Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

syntactic sugar
     
        Term coined by Peter Landin for additions to the syntax of a
        language which do not affect its expressiveness but make it
        "sweeter" for humans to use.  Syntactic sugar gives the
        programmer an alternative way of coding that is more succinct
        or more like some familiar notation.  It does not affect the
        expressiveness of the formalism (compare {chrome}).
     
        Syntactic sugar can be easily translated ("desugared") to
        produce a program in some simpler "core" syntax.  E.g. C's
        "a[i]" notation is syntactic sugar for "*(a + i)".  In a
        (curried) functional language, all operators are really
        functions and the use of {infix notation} "x+y" is syntactic
        sugar for function application "(+) x y".
     
        Alan Perlis once quipped, "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of
        the semicolon."
     
        The variants "syntactic saccharin" and "syntactic syrup" are
        also recorded.  These denote something even more gratuitous,
        in that they serve no purpose at all.  Compare {candygrammar},
        {syntactic salt}.