The compound word **岔子 (chàzi)** is formed through a combination of semantic and grammatical derivation: the core character **岔 (chà)** originally denotes a fork in a road or a divergence, carrying connotations of something going off the main path or awry; this is then combined with the nominal suffix **子 (zi)**, which commonly forms concrete or abstract nouns from other morphemes. Together, they create a noun that metaphorically extends the idea of a "fork" or "deviation" to mean a "problem," "mishap," or "something that has gone wrong," effectively lexicalizing the concept of an unexpected and troublesome turn of events.