I won't give you a hard time about it. (My other degree is in Southern History
) But Tennessee is considered Upper South. That's interesting that you're hearing people call it Deep South. Deep South refers to the cotton states and only the states that seceded before the attack on Fort Sumter. Tennessee, Virginia, and Arkansas are considered Upper South. They preferred to wait-and-see when it came to secession. Slave holding was significantly less prominent in Tennessee and they had much larger ties to the Union. Culturally, there is significant differences between Upper South and Deep South. Traditional architecture differs as well. Add in that 1/3 of Tennessee, on the Knoxville side, is actually culturally Upland South which has deep Scottish Highland roots as well as settlements from Germans and other Europeans that migrated through the Shenandoah Valley south. Much of the accent we hear in the South, particularly in the mountains, is a derivative of Scottish.