I think we can understand syntactic sugar as an alternative (hopefully more convenient, elegant, or pleasing) syntax for expressing something that can already b

I think we can understand syntactic sugar as an alternative (hopefully more convenient, elegant, or pleasing) syntax for expressing something that can already be expressed. That is, something that works the same but looks better (hopefully). A cross-CPU abstraction, a preprocessor, a standard library all have certain elements of syntax in them, but go well beyond alternative syntax.