Teujip did not begin as a flaw but as the name of a delicate step in making a horsehair hat. A craftsman would set the wide bamboo brim (yangtae) onto a round form and, with a heated iron, scorch and coax it bit by bit until the center rose in a gentle dome — and this shaping work was called "teujip japgi," literally taking hold of the spread. The trouble was that a gat, once worn, would warp in the wind and rain, its brim parting open into gaps — and those gaps, too, were called teujip. People brought their hats to the gat-maker to have these gaps mended. But hat-makers eager for a bigger repair fee took to pointing at perfectly sound spots as well — "a teujip here, a teujip there" — manufacturing flaws to find. As customers grumbled, "Why do you keep finding teujip?", the word flipped: no longer a craftsman's careful touch, but the act of deliberately digging up faults that were never there. A term of skilled craft had inverted into a byword for petty quarreling.