There have been several threads covering this general subject since 07. At the risk of repeating myself:-
a) like most languages ours is constantly evolving and word meanings change and get new meanings all the time.
b) Many words in the dictionary have a whole range of meanings, some overlapping.

We should consider the word 'folk' in the same way. What was useful in 54 is still very useful to many of us on this forum today, myself included, but I'm afraid we've been somewhat overtaken. The media and hence 'the folk' now have quite a different concept of the word. We can't fight that. You either need to change the word that is covered by 54 or just accept that words can have different meanings to different groups of people. I don't have a problem with any of this.