True; but it's also endlessly interesting if the discussion is conducted intelligently, as it has been here.

In another thread that touched on the same topic, Cecil Sharp was described as having said that a song "had to be anonymous" in order to be considered traditional. That was a misrepresentation; he actually said (to paraphrase) that authorship, even if it could be determined (and at the time that was a lot harder; we have resources now that the researchers of a century ago didn't dream of) was irrelevant. What determined the nature of a "folk song" was what had happened to it, not where it had originally come from. A lot of people, relying on second or third hand resumés, have missed that point.

It's arguable that what separates a genuinely "traditional" song from one which is simply aurally transmitted some of the time is whether or not a constant reference point is generally available. Yellow Submarine, because of its second life as a vehicle for songs at (UK) football matches, is often pointed to as an example of a recently-composed piece which has passed into tradition. David Atkinson (I'm afraid I can't remember the reference at the moment) points out that this is a fallacious definition, as it is extremely unlikely that anyone singing a parody of the song will be unfamiliar with the "definitive" recorded version.

Food for thought, anyway. I can't speak to the American experience (Michael and "Nerd" will have to deal with that) and I certainly accept that modes of transmission may have varied there, at least for a while. Perhaps less than is generally thought, though. I've reached the point where I'm surprised if an English-language "traditional folksong" can't be found in print at least 50 years before first found in oral currency.

It may well be that many songs were taken from oral sources and published as broadsides, but the received wisdom of 30-odd years ago that most of them were no longer seems very convincing. We're at a time when a great deal of re-evaluation needs doing, and I look forward to seeing how it develops.