What ya all know about the South. I was Born In Valdosta GA (check out THAT state flag) and Raised in Montgomery AL ( the Auto tags used to have "The Heart of Dixie" written across the bottom of them before other states started making statements, and the three white high schools in Montgomery are Confederate President Jefferson Davis HS, The Southern State's Poet Laureate Sidney Lanier HS, and Confederate general Robert E. Lee HS...the "Black High School" was George Washington Carver HS. I graduated from Carver.)
And a boy in Kentuck ain't got no right to get his back up over a phrase he thinks is demeaning to US southerners. Got a good heritage up thar though....ridge runnin', moonshine, good family feudin', and some horses. But it ain't THE South.
I never took offense to the reference....hell Rebs use it all the time. Seems like some of us used to think when you were "headed south" you were getting sicker and were likely to be going south by about six feet physically (and alot more Spiritually if you didn't listen to the preacher).
That explanation with the "graph", seems like the saying has been around alot longer than one of them graph thingees.
AND NOW I LIVE IN FLORIDA. I find it amusing that people down here try to declare they have a "Southern Heritage"....Buncha Yankees. This State should be named, "South Yorkseyania."