We were chatting about autocratic leadership and how some of our superiors would like us to be “yes men” to be seen but not heard and good old Charlie pointed out to me that the full saying should be “Yes sir, no sir, 3 bags full sir!” although he has no idea where it came from.
Well, it’s truly appropriate the saying on how we are condescendingly being treated like children would come from from a well-known children nursery rhyme “Baa baa black sheep”.
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The version you’ve quoted here is the relatively modern, more socially equal one. In the 18th century the last line read “but none for the little boy who cries in the lane”. In an older version the last half went:
“Two for the master, one for the dame,
None for the little boy who lives down the lane.”
Apparently it was a reference to social inequity.
It has also been suggested that, like many if not most classic English nursery rhymes, it has a hidden political meaning. In this case the target is the 13th century King Edward I, who imposed a heavy wool tax on the people. In other words, most of the black sheep’s wool goes to the “master” (i.e. the king) and the “dame” (i.e. the queen) with little or nothing left over for the owners (i.e. the little boy who lives on the farm).
Ha ha. At a job I had after college, when we wanted to be insolent to our managers we would answer their queries with “yes sir, three bags full”. They never understood the humor behind that and so we didn’t get fired or even reprimanded.
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