I encountered this word, which means “comfortable, pleasant” and is pronounced ここちよい. I found this pronunciation unusual: not only is it a combination of kun’yomi and on’yomi, but the kun’yomi こころ seems to be cut in the middle, as if the 地 snatched its tail!
Any idea how this came about?
(And also, what does “earth” have to do with the meaning?)
I found some sources that say there was a sound shift from 心持ち (こころもち), so keeping the same meaning but a shortening of the longer word, and then they just ateji’d it (use kanji with those sounds) and there already happened to be a Chinese compound of 心地 anyway. I don’t have a more reliable source for that, but I can continue to look later.
Generally speaking, if you see weird kanji compounds, they’re often just there for the sound. Or the word already existed in Japanese and then they slapped kanji onto it.
Sushi has nothing to do with 寿 or 司, but that’s how you spell it in kanji (one way anyway).
So wiktionary believes this word was once 心持ち（こころもち）+ よい and got shortened to ここち over time, at which point people started using the Chinese spelling as it started looking basically right. The choice makes more logical sense in Chinese since 地 is used for tolerance in Chinese.