Kontemplating konfusing and konfounding korporate kuriosities

I have nothing against the Kleen-Rite Corp., which I’d never even heard of until I spotted one of the firm’s Kleen-Vend machines attached to the wall at a car wash. This dispenser carries assorted cleaning products for your vehicle, which is fine and dandy but not the reason why we’re gathered here today.

What caught my eye is the name of the machine: Kleen-Vend. Which triggered the following question: Why? Why mess with proper spelling? Okay, “rite,” as in Kleen-Rite Corp., has the advantage of being shorter than “right,” so that change has a certain dubious logic. But “kleen”?

Why dub your company Kleen-Rite and label your product Kleen-Vend when, using the same number of letters, you could go with Clean-Rite and Clean-Vend? After all, “vend” is an actual word, so the company got it half right.

Is a manufactured word more attractive to consumers than the real deal? Does corporate America have an excessive fondness for the letter ‘k”? (Maybe so. Kleenex and Krispy Kreme have been around for a while now.) Has some other company copyrighted the use of the word “clean” in product naming?

It’s one of life’s more curious conundrums. Or should that be kurious konundrums? Where's Krazy Kat when you need a little linguistic help?