Reddit reviews Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends

In that case, the implication is not that Chinese speakers "can't figure it out". Characters must be chosen to produce a phonetic reading of "co ca co la" and the selected characters, are, additionally, going to have meaning of their own. The myth is that Coca Cola's marketing is ignorant, not that Chinese people are stupid. The myth states that Coca Cola chose a phrase meaning "bite the wax tadpole", but as awa64 explains below they actually came up with a very elegant solution and "bite the wax tadpole" was only used unofficially by native Chinese themselves before an official writing was decided upon by the company.

I picked this up at random in the library the other day and read it: http://www.amazon.com/Word-Myths-Debunking-Linguistic-Legends/dp/0195375572

This legend is covered, as well as "Chevy No Va", "Rule of Thumb", "Ring Around The Rosie" and a few other big ones. It's very dry, but interesting if you're into that sort of thing.