Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ask people from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or even Georgia and they will say their states are more Southern than Tennessee, typically.
Depends on where area of the state said person I'm asking is from and what their criteria of "Southern" is. Socially, TN is every bit of stereotypical Southern (blues, country, Bluegrass, etc). TN has heavy accents on average (not a negative). I'm from GA myself and I'm aware that Southern on this board is about sweet tea, biscuits, and other simple ish. TN seems to have more variety of Southern than the states you named (Appalachian East, Lower South West, Sunbelt Central). Directionally, yeah, TN isn't all that Southern compared to the states that you listed (no argument there). All in all, TN may be shaping up to have its own brand of Southern....right now, it isn't that distinct to me.
Ask people from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or even Georgia and they will say their states are more Southern than Tennessee, typically.
This is only because those states include more of the Deep South, which is viewed as the most Southern of all Southern subregions, than TN. I seriously doubt folks from those states would group TN with the likes of TX, VA, or even NC also.
I'm sure that many people from the Lower South don't see TN the same way as Urban VA or even parts of KY that borders the Midwest. TN is a BBQ hub and I'm sure other Southerners would be reminded of their home state there.
Obviously there is the demarcation between the Appalachian south and the non mountain south, but I've always heard there were some differences in the "tobacco south" and the "cotton south" culturally in earlier days. And then of course there was Virginia which was different because it was close to the seat of government and as a result had much more interaction with northern states as a result.
Ask people from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or even Georgia and they will say their states are more Southern than Tennessee, typically.
Tennessee to me ( Sippian) , is just another southern state like those that surrounds the Sipp. I constantly wonder what's " Southern " to some posters subjectively. Outside the realms of geography, culturally it's not an all encompassing singular theme that many posters tend to keep pushing.
Border South: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia
Deep South: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas
This is basically correct. I use the term "Upper South" usually instead of Border South since the "Border States" is different in a Civil War context. It's hard to call North Carolina a Border South state when it is surrounded on all sides by other Southern states.
I think that the answer to the question of the OP depends on whether you are measuring deep South physically or culturally.
Personally, I think that a lot of it is cultural. It would be interesting to create a heat map of cultural agreed upon cultural aspects of the deep South and then map it against the region. Of course, you'd have to gain agreement on what those cultural aspects are, and that opens an entirely new can of worms.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
