Point well made, M-Ted.

I think one of the reasons these discussions flail about like an octopus having the fits and wind up ticking people off and ultimately getting nowhere is that two definitions (at least two) are being used for the word "folk."

There was a time when the word "folk" had a fairly specific meaning. The first time the words "folk song" were known to have been used, it was by German philosopher, poet, and literary critic, Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744—1803), who advocated the collecting of volkslied (folk song)—by which he meant "songs of the rural peasant class"—and that if composers wanted their music to have a national character, they should incorporated themes from volkslied into their compositions. One example of a composer who has done this is Ralph Vaughn Williams, another is Bela Bartok. And there are many others. And collectors such as Sharp, the Lomaxes, et al, have used, essentially, the von Herder definition of "folk" (volk), and subsequently "folk song," as a guideline in their song collecting.

In times past, the word "folk" had a fairly specific meaning. But despite the incredible disparity in incomes and lifestyles in modern society, we like to think of ourselves as a "classless society," and the concept of a "rural peasant class" is not something we like to give credence to.

Nevertheless—this is the reality that ethnomusicologists deal with, and as a result, there is quite a difference between what an ethnomusicologist means when he uses the word "folk" and what someone means when they use the word in the very broad and general sense, the way many "folks" here on Mudcat are using it, meaning "people in general," or "just plain folks."

Don Firth