"harsh reality check" is a correct and commonly used phrase in written English.
It can be used when someone needs to confront or come to terms with a difficult or unpleasant truth or situation. Example: After being laid off from her job, Sarah received a harsh reality check when she realized how difficult it would be to find a new job in a struggling economy.
While this hate crime is intolerable, it is also a harsh reality check.
Seriously misleading someone is obviously wrong, but so is flooring someone with an unnecessarily harsh reality check.
A harsh reality check Three months on, sitting in a rented flat in London, Wheeldon seems his usual, relaxed self.
Kenneth Mubu, shadow economic minister for the opposition Democratic Alliance, described it as a "harsh reality check for our government" and called for a parliamentary debate.
After a blistering start (five wins from the first six matches) the nine-match winless streak that followed was a harsh reality check.
But there are hollows in his cheeks that weren't, I think, there when he launched Morphoses three years ago – and he admits that the experience turned out to be a "harsh reality check".
The messages in many of his shows are harsh reality checks of his mentor's pie-in-the-sky optimism.
"A lot of independent films are harsh reality checks," Plaza says, "but this is an independent film with a blockbuster feeling".
But if April 22nd was the cruellest day for the prime minister and the 12-year-old Labour government not to mention a harsh reality-check for the British public it also had a broader international relevance.
Reality Check Erica Douglass offers insights on the harsh realities of being an entrepreneur: "To really succeed, you have to have the guts to not listen to basically anything that's popular in our society.
The harsh remark made about the speaker's voice was an unfortunate reality check.
