"There once was a Man from Nantucket" is the opening line for many limericks and is among the most familiar opening lines in poetry. This literary trope can be attributed to the popularity of the limerick genre among the many whalers who once lived on the island of Nantucket, whose name lends itself easily to humorous rhymes and puns.

Both obscene and decent versions of the poem exist. In the countless vulgar versions, the mythopoeic protagonist is typically portrayed as a well-hung, hypersexualized persona.

History

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One of the earliest known clean versions of the Man from Nantucket idiom is this rendition from 1924:

There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

This version was so popular that the newspapers Princeton Tiger Magazine and The Chicago Tribune each started a "Limerick Challenge" for readers to submit sequels to the poem. The first in the series, as it appeared in the Tribune and Pawtucket Times, was this:

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,

The man and the girl with the bucket;

And he said to the man,

He was welcome to Nan,

But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.

The New York Exchange followed up with this:

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,

Where he still held the cash as an asset,

But Nan and the man

Stole the money and ran,

And as for the bucket, Manhasset.

Obscene versions

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Many ribald versions of the limerick have been popular because of the ease in which the town's name can be rhymed with vulgar words. Among the best known variations is the following:

There once was a man from Nantucket

Whose dick was so long he could suck it.

While wiping his chin,

He said with a grin,

"If my ear was a cunt, I could fuck it."

External links

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• A feature on the "Limerick Challenge"

American poems | humor | Islands of Massachusetts | Nantucket County, Massachusetts | Nantucket, Massachusetts