The word 可乐 is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing and semantic enhancement. It directly mimics the sound of the English word "cola" (可口可乐 for Coca-Cola being the most famous example), using the characters 可 (kě) and 乐 (lè) primarily for their pronunciation. However, the characters were cleverly selected not just for sound, but for their inherent meanings, 可 meaning "can" or "may", and 乐 meaning "happy" or "joy", thus creating a compound that suggests "can bring happiness" or "delightful", which beautifully and intentionally layers a positive connotation onto the borrowed foreign name.