Shimrod,

I really don't see where you are going any more with your argument.

You don't need a degree to be able to discern between different genres of song and music. There has been substancial research into traditional music for over a century which is available. Going by your suggestion that a song has to be traditional to be folk, I am interested to know what genre you class well crafted songs by writers such as John Conolly, Jez Lowe, Hughie Jones, even the Captain himself.... classical, pop, punk?

Toy Palmer, whio I am sure is impeccable in his research methodologies talks of the tradition in its making.....

Referring back to my original argument, new songs do find there m=way into the folk canon (I am no saying traditional, though many songs do wrongly get cited as such) those that do have a style that clearly identify them with the genre, conversely there are many songs that do not fit in with the style, and fall by the wayside.