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"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 chaste versions of the poem exist. In the countless vulgar versions, the mythopoeic protagonist is typically portrayed as a well-hung, hypersexualized persona.

Contents 1 History 2 Obscene versions 3 Popular culture 4 References

One of the earliest known clean versions of the Man from Nantucket motif 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. 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.

The many ribald versions of the limerick are the basis for its lasting popularity. Many variations on the theme are possible because of the ease of rhyming Nantucket with some of the vulgar words. The following variation is among the best known.

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 were a cunt, I could fuck it."

• In Woody Allen's 1966 What's Up, Tiger Lily?, the protagonist, Phil Moskowitz, reads the opening line of an "ancient erotic poetry", namely, "There once was a man from Nantucket".
• The Simpsons episode "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" has Homer mentioning he knew a "man from Nantucket". When asked what he was like, Homer responded "Let us just say the stories about him were greatly exaggerated."
• In Steven Soderbergh's 2002 film Solaris, the male protagonist played by George Clooney tries to impress his girlfriend with his knowledge of his favorite poet Dylan Thomas, but when she asks him for his favorite poem he comes up with "the one he is most famous for, which starts, um, 'There once was a young man from Nantucket' ".

• A feature on the "Limerick Challenge"