Rub-a-dub-dub
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"Rub-a-dub-dub" is an
English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. Fr ...
first published at the end of the 18th century in volume two of Hook's ''Christmas Box'' under the title "Dub a dub dub" rather than "Rub a dub dub". It has a
Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...
number of 3101.


Lyrics

This rhyme exists in many variations. Among those current today is:
Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub, And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, And all of them out to sea.


Origins and meaning

The earliest versions of this rhyme published differ significantly in their wording. Dating back to the 14th century,Chris Roberts
Librarian at Lambeth College, London; interviewed on NPR in 2005
/ref> the original rhyme makes reference to maids in a "tub" – a fairground attraction similar to a modern
peep show A peep show, peepshow, or, a peep booth is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the devel ...
. The rhyme is of a type calling out otherwise respectable people for disrespectable actions, in this case, ogling naked ladies – the maids. The nonsense "rub-a-dub-dub" develops a phonetic association of social disapprobation, analogous to "tsk-tsk", albeit of a more lascivious variety. The nursery rhyme is a form of teaching such associations in
folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
: for individuals raised with such social codes, the phrase "rub-a-dub-dub" alone could stand in for gossip or innuendo without communicating all of the details. One early recorded version in ''Christmas Box'', published in London in 1798, has wording similar to that in ''Mother Goose's Quarto or Melodies Complete'', published in Boston, Massachusetts around 1825. The latter ran:
Hey! rub-a-dub, ho! rub-a-dub, three
maid A maid, housemaid, or maidservant is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era, domestic service was the second-largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids a ...
s in a tub, And who do you think were there? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, And all of them gone to the fair. I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 447.
In the original version as it appeared both in England and in the United States (Boston) the song was talking about three maids instead of three men. Later research, according to ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (1951), suggests that the lyrics are illustrating a scene of three respectable townsfolk "watching a dubious sideshow at a local fair". By around 1830 the reference to maids was being removed from the versions printed in nursery books. In 1842
James Orchard Halliwell James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (born James Orchard Halliwell; 21 June 1820 – 3 January 1889) was an English writer, Shakespearean scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Life The son of Thomas Hal ...
collected the following version:
Rub a dub dub, Three fools in a tub, And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, The candlestick maker. Turn them out, knaves all three.
On a 1958 vinyl album of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes y Caedmonwith
Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), known professionally as Boris Karloff () and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was a British actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstei ...
, he sings a different version of the song that goes like this:
Rub a dub dub, Three men in a tub, And how do you think they got there? The butcher, the baker, The candlestick maker. They all jumped out of a rotten potato, Was enough to make a man stare.
There are several variants of the following story:
A pilot returning from a mission could not locate his
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
and in addition failed to establish
secure communication Secure communication is when two entities are communicating and do not want a third party to listen in. For this to be the case, the entities need to communicate in a way that is unsusceptible to eavesdropping or interception. Secure communication ...
. So he circled around the formation and radioed: "Rub a dub dub, where is my tub?" And received: "
Hey Diddle Diddle "Hey Diddle Diddle" (also "Hi Diddle Diddle", "The Cat and the Fiddle", or "The Cow Jumped over the Moon") is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19478. Lyrics and music A version of the rhyme is: Hey diddle did ...
! Right here in the middle!"
Some memoirs claim it was a real incident.


In popular culture

"Rub-a-dub-dub" or sometimes just "rub-a-dub" is
Cockney rhyming slang Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymi ...
for "
pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...
". "Rub-A-Dub-Dub" is the title of a 1953 country music song by Hank Thompson, a 1984 animated television series by Peter Lang and Alan Rogers, and a 2023 novel by Robert Wringham.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rub-A-Dub-Dub English nursery rhymes English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs with unknown songwriters Year of song unknown