Two stories are passed down at the root of gamssok-gatda. The better-known one involves a "slice of dried persimmon" (gotgam jjok). Dried persimmons are sweet and delicious, so the tale goes that you would quickly pop a slice in your mouth and finish it without a trace, lest someone come asking for a share — and from that quick, tidy act came the word gamssok-gatda. The other, considered the more authoritative account, is the "graft" (gamjeop, 感接) story. On old farms, a persimmon branch would be grafted onto a date-plum tree and bound tightly with cord; when it took well, the two trees joined into one body and the graft point became almost invisible. The expression that something was "as trace-free as a graft" hardened into gamssok-gatda.