WAV asks "Why not put English Country/Barn Dance" on your next pamphlet/flyer, and see what happens..?"

Because to those in the know, "ceilidh" conveys specific information about the style of dancing and music.

In England, a "ceilidh" may include English country dances, along with those nasty foreign imports such as polkas, waltzes and schottisches that our forebears were misguided enough to enjoy. Calling it a "ceilidh" indicates that these will be danced in a certain way, and the music will be played in a certain style. A "Folk Dance" or "Country Dance" may involve the same repertoire of dances and tunes but the styles of both dancing and playing will be different.

"Barn Dance" is so vague that it could be anything, but will usually encourage punters to arrive with stetsons and cap guns.

These distinctions may be lost on the general public, but for folk dance enthusiasts these semantic differences enable them to tell in advance what to expect.

Like it or not, after being used in this way for at least 30 years, "ceilidh" is now part of the English language, in the same way as other borrowed words like whisky (Gaelic), bungalow (Hindi), or alcohol (Arabic), to give just a few examples. Why do you have a beef (French) with that?