: What this thread has done is prove the original argument: that any definition of 'folk' is ...
:"sod all use to man nor beast".

The original message was a lot more general than that. Sure, "folk" in the English-speaking world is too fucked up to be any use any more. So people reinvent new terms to do what it can't: the singer-songwriters use "acoustic" to exclude traditional tunes and ballads, people who do those describe theor act as "traditional".

The people with the largest problem and the most refined solution to it are the pop and rock performers. Look at the "want to form a band" ads in any music shop and you see cards with lists of "influences". The effect of that is that the advertiser is defining their own subgenre in an extremely precise way, which they need to do because they have a LOT of subgenres. And if the ad lists Velvet Underground and The Pixies, you are *not* going to persuade them you'll be a useful addition by saying you used to be in a Fairport covers band and "there are only two kinds of music, good and bad" (bleurgh).