I know there has been another discussion of the term Dixie and it was kind of decided that it could be offensive/ not PC. So I am wondering what is another word for the South besides Dixie--south of the Mason-Dixon line?
I don't see how it can be offensive, given that it's a term the southerners themselves adopted. Might as well say it's offensive to call someone a negro, or (to revive an earlier discussion) a Jew, or an American.
There grew up an idea, during the '70s I think, that just as it's immoral to dislike someone because he's Irish-or-whatever, it's immoral also to like him for the same reason. That's just silly; the reason it's wrong to hate someone because of race/gender/etc is that it's wrong to hate, for any reason (with a few rare exceptions). Therefore there's no rationale for avoiding descriptions; you might just as well claim that I'm complimenting a Mexican, a woman or a day laborer by calling him so.
I know there are a lot of people who disagree, but I don't care: I choose to fight back against artificial over-sensitivity regarding terms by using the terms freely and without apology, defending against complaints by the simple argument "but that's the WORD for it!".
To answer your question, though, all that comes to me is "the South" and "the Southeast". "Appalachia" is not the same but there's a lot of overlap.
It's not so much offensive as a term that mostly Southerners use. If I heard a Northerner (especially one from New England) refer to the South as Dixie I'd be quite surprised and think they were puttin' on Southern airs.