The earliest versions of this rhyme published differ significantly in their wording. Dating back to the 14th century, the original rhyme makes reference to maids in a "tub" – a fairground attraction similar to a modern
peep show. 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: 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
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. 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". ==In popular culture==