diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils/unicode.py b/lib/ansible/utils/unicode.py
index c27d88977b..072d6c0d58 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils/unicode.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils/unicode.py
@@ -254,6 +254,31 @@ def unicode_wrap(func, *args, **kwargs):
 
 
 # Alias for converting to native strings.
+# Native strings are the default string type for the particular version of
+# python.  The objects are called "str" in both py2 and py3 but they mean
+# different things.  In py2, it's a byte string like in C.  In py3 it's an
+# abstract text type (like py2's unicode type).
+#
+# Use this when raising exceptions and wanting to get the string
+# representation of an object for the exception message.  For example:
+#
+# try:
+#    do_something()
+# except Exception as e:
+#    raise AnsibleError(to_str(e))
+#
+# Note that this is because python's exception handling expects native strings
+# and doe the wrong thing if given the other sort of string (in py2, if given
+# unicode strings, it could traceback or omit the message.  in py3, if given
+# byte strings it prints their repr (so the message ends up as b'message').
+#
+# If you use ansible's API instead of re-raising an exception, use to_unicode
+# instead:
+#
+# try:
+#     do_something()
+# except Exception as e:
+#     display.warn(to_unicode(e))
 if PY3:
     to_str = to_unicode
 else: