When Coca-Cola began looking for a suitable Chinese version of its name after launching the drink there in 1927, it found that some local shopkeepers had produced homemade signs using Chinese characters to replicate the sound of the words "Coca-Cola, " without noticing that the characters in combination could be read as "female horse fastened with wax" or "bite the wax tadpole, " according to Coca-Cola researchers.
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