What name might we use to encompass the music that we like, to avoid the divisiveness of accurate use of other terms?

I'm with Little Robyn. The problem seems to me to be that some lovers of traditional folk music want to say "what we do is folk, therefore what you do isn't, regardless of what you call it". Even Richard's first post on the thread fell into this trap.

Think of it another way. 100 years ago, what was considered "traditional"? Kipling's verses put to music certainly wouldn't have been - some of them would only just have been published, and even "Mandalay" had only been around for 17 years. But you could go to any folk club you liked today, no matter how restrictive their limits on what you played, and your choice would be soundly approved of as being in the tradition.

So how's about calling the two groups of material "traditional folk" and "new folk" (or "modern folk" or whatever)? Then see that given a little time, songs in the latter category may be added to the former category if they've stood the test of time. "Modern folk" doesn't just mean your whiny 17-year-old singer-songwriter or rocked-up groups like Show of Hands; it also covers highly-respected artists who write/wrote within the tradition, like Cyril Tawny, Eric Bogle and Dick Gaughan.

Graham.