可 - Ke3 - Can, Able To
There’s a million expressions of the form 可-Verb, which usually mean something like Can Verb or Can Be Verbed. For instance:
可以 - Ke3 Yi3 - Can Use — Can, Able To
可愛 - Ke3 Ai4 - Can Love — Cute
可笑 - Ke3 Xiao4 - Can Laugh — Funny, Laughable
可怕 - Ke3 Pa4 - Can Fear — Scary, Dreadful
可口 - Ke3 Kou3 - Can Mouth — Tasty
That last one is part of what Coca-Cola is called in Chinese: 可口可樂 - Ke3 Kou3 Ke3 Le4. It means something like “Tasty and makes you happy”. There apparently is some truth to the story about Coca-Cola being originally transliterated as something meaning “bite the wax tadpole” but I haven’t been able to piece together what that would have been yet.
蠟 - La4 - Wax
蝌 - Ke1 - Tadpole
Maybe it was 口蝌口蠟?
Marcus
I’ve found a page in Chinese with the whole incident explained. It’s definitely not how I imagined it: “咬蜡制的蝌蚪”
“司使用一组听起来像汉字的名字，但那些汉字翻译过来实际是：“咬蜡制的蝌蚪”(bite the Wax tadpole)，而现在可口可乐牌子上的汉字则是“口中的幸福”(Happiness in the mouth)。”
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