Looks like Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) has given a word that made me pull out something that was installed in my head a long time ago. The word “tub” brings up the phrase that always pops in my head every time I see a tub; or even hear the word tub. Yep, when I see a hot tub at a health spa, or a back yard, or at my girlfriend’s house running the bath water; I always hear “ Rub a dub dub. Three men in a tub, the Butcher, the Sailor, the Candle stick Maker….”  

Yeah that old nursery rhyme that the Teacher use to recite way back in the days of yesteryear when the only thing that I used to do was wake up, go to school, play and have fun, come home, have some more fun until bed time and do it all over again the next day.   

Even when I came home and put on the T.V and watch popular Children’s show called “Play School” they used to recite that nursery rhyme a lot. Why does it stick to me to this day, I’ll need to explore it.

I know “ Rub a dub dub. Three men in a tub, the Butcher, the Sailor, the Candle stick Maker….”  Isn’t the whole nursery rhyme, it is just the only words I remember. But thanks to Google, I put the missing verses together.  Hell, there’s even a video on youtube with a singing version.

I learned that the rhyme dates all the way back to the 18^th century, it  was first recorded in 1798 in the “Christmas Box” collection.

The original version

“Hey! rub-a-dub, ho! rub-a-dub, three maids 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.”

The later versions replaced the three maids with three men. I wonder if there is a hidden connotation. Three men in a tub…  

The modern version is:

 Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they were?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
They all sailed out to sea,
‘Twas enough to make a man stare.

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
All put out to sea

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