In the chapter 5 of the book Creativity, Inc. the author, Ed Catmull, writes a lot about candor and honesty, but I'm not sure I was able to fully understand what candor means.
Maybe I'm confused because of Portuguese (my native language). In Portuguese we have honesty (Honestidade), sincerity (Sinceridade) and candor (Candura). However this "equivalent" of candor is used much more for innocence. That's the reason I would prefer the term sincerity.
Is there a big difference between those two terms?
Best Answer
In English, the word candor [candour in many dialects] has come to primarily mean openness and frankness, and a tendency to tell harsh truths. The OED defines it as:
Sincerity does mean something similar, but it doesn't generally have the "tendency to tell harsh truths" connotation.
In other words, I would use candor to describe someone who speaks up about harsh truths without necessarily being asked. Sincerity would describe someone who can be relied upon to tell the truth when asked, though they might not speak up on their own. (This is why candor is not always viewed positively, since it can cause social friction; whereas sincerity is generally seen as an unalloyed virtue.)
Aside: To my surprise, the use of candor to mean
(which would seem to be the fashion it is used in Portuguese) can be found in older English texts, though the OED now considers this usage "obsolete".