The idiom "like a ram to a new gate" (usually in combination with verbs - looks or stares) is very famous and used today. This is usually said of a person who was dumbfounded by a vision that was something very unexpected for him. Also, this idiom is used to characterize a not very smart person, slowly thinking, silly, stupid.
In his speech, looking for images for comparison, people often turn to natural objects. So, for example, they see a fool as something motionless - a tree, a club. Compare similar expressions: "a stump with ears", "a stauros club." Or here is a comparison with an animal: "stupid, like a gray gelding." Such is the expression “like a ram to a new gate, ” the meaning is similar. Next, we give two of the most likely explanations for the origin of this phraseology.
The first version. From life
The most common version of the origin of this idiom is also the simplest. Therefore, we will present it first. It has purely "everyday" roots, in addition, as they say, "zoologically justified." Everyone (and if someone does not know, then probably read about it) knows that a ram is a stupid and stubborn animal. The lamb nature is subject to habit - in the morning he was driven out on the same road to the pasture, and the interior around was always the same. So, there is a story that at the same time explains the meaning and sheds light on the emergence of this expression.
Once in the morning, one owner spent a herd of sheep eating, and while they were gone, he painted the gate in a different color. Or maybe completely updated. In the evening (and sometimes, by the way, the rams were driven out to graze for the whole season), the herd returned from the pasture, and the main ram - the leader of the herd - froze at the "new" gate, stupidly examining a detail of an unusual color. It is incomprehensible: the native courtyard, but the gates are not the same. Stands, looking, and not a step forward. And with it the whole herd is marking time.
It is very possible that, having taken the “new” gate for some unknown enemy, the animal began methodically attacking it and hammering it with horns. Here, the owner had no choice but to take and transfer the stupid animal into the yard, and then drive the rest of the herd. However, they say, there was a case when the gate was moved a few meters to the right. The ram came to its former place and stood stupidly looking at the place where the entrance used to be. Zoologists suggest that the lamb "strength" is visual memory, which helps (and sometimes prevents) them navigate in space.
The second version. Historical
Does the second version have any semantic connection with the first, remains a mystery. Because the roots of this explanation of the origin of the famous saying go back in time. Rams supposedly at the beginning of our era began to be called rams - stenobitnye and gate-breaking tools, on the end of which cast-iron or bronze tips were put on for the fortress in the form of a ram's head. The Carthaginians allegedly came up with them, but the images of these tools were known to archaeologists from the Assyrians.
The Hebrew historian Josephus in the 1st century AD wrote of this instrument as follows:
This is a monstrous beam, similar to a ship mast and equipped with a strong iron tip like a lamb's head, from which it got its name; in the middle, it is suspended on thick ropes from another transverse beam resting at both ends on strong pillars. Pulled back by many warriors and thrown forward by joined forces, it shakes the wall with its iron end.
It is worth listening to his words, since the historian himself wrote about rams firsthand, and more than once he was a direct witness to the sieges of the Jewish cities by the Romans.
Another military theorist, this time a Roman one, by the name of Vegezii in the 4th century, suggested that the "ram" was called the "ram" not only because of consonance, but also because of the same tactics of the uniform and powerful attack-butting of a hostile object.
It is worth mentioning that V. I. Dahl uses in one of the articles in the general row (as synonyms) the words "wall-mounted gun", "ram", "ram".
There is also a version of the origin of the idiom "like a ram to the new gate", which refers to the Sheep (Gethsemane) gate in Jerusalem - once sacrificial animals were carried through them. However, it does not seem logical, since it does not explain the general meaning of the expression.
Examples of use in the literature
From joy and surprise, for the first second, he could not even utter a word, and only, like a ram at a new gate, looked at her.
(I. Bunin, "Ida")
- He would, like a fool, say: “Sin, father!” Well, he sniffles a little and pounds his eyes like a ram at a new gate.
(M. Sholokhov, "Virgin Soil Upturned")
Please note that the phraseology “like a sheep to a new gate” in the sentence plays the role of circumstances and according to the rules of the Russian language should be separated by a comma. True, in modern literary sources, authors increasingly do not isolate this comparison. With "frozen" expressions, idioms, this happens:
But I stared at the task like a ram at a new gate and left it alone. I did not even understand from which side you could approach her.
(E. Ryazanov, "Unsumpted Results")
However, this is still not the rule, and it is not worth following it.
