“Florida—Land of Newlyweds and Nearly Deads”
Florida has been called the land of “newlyweds and nearly deads.” The same has been applied to Hawaii, California, Atlantic City, and other places.
Google Books
The Rough Guide to Florida
London: Rough Guides Ltd.
2004
Pg. 52:
Far from being the land of the “newly wed and the nearly dead” as many comedians have described the state, Florida’s immaculate climate has persuaded people from all over the US and the rest of the world to arrive in search of a subtropical paradise.
23 March 1952, New York Times, pg. BR20:
QUIET, PLEASE. By James Branch Cabell. 105 pp. A University of Florida Press Book. New York: Farrar, Straus & Young. $3.
(...)
Nowadays, during winters among the newlyweds and nearly-deads in St. Augustine, he is seldom reminded of his once “nation-wide famousness.”
4 September 1966, Los Angeles Times, “Getting Stuck on Boardwalk in Atlantic City” by Jerry Hulse, pg. E10:
Here is the home of newlyweds and the nearly-deads.
28 July 1968, Los Angeles
“Hawaii Goes Gaga Over Golf” by Chuck Novak, pg. M17:
Until a few years ago, the tourist trade was generally sized up as the “newly wed and the nearly dead.”
2 March 1971, Chicago Tribune, pg. 14:
It is easy to see why Evanston has been dubbed “the city of the newly wed and nearly dead.”
27 June 1971, Los Angeles Times, pg. WS5:
For some time there has been a local joke that Santa Monica is a city of the newly wed and nearly dead—and there appears to be more than a shred of truth in it.
13 October 1974, Chicago Tribune, pg. D1:
Once the name you’d most like to drop as having been there, Atlantic City today is an attraction for, the flip tongues say, “newlyweds and nearly deads.”
30 September 1979, Chicago Tribune, “Aging Wikiki hotel to close” by Bruce Hamby, pg. L7:
When I first visited Hawaii some 20 years ago, there was a tendency on the part of many, both locals and visitors, to sneer at the hotel. It was variously called “menopause manor” and “the home of the newlyweds and nearly dead.”