可
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?
REPLY))
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)。”