Please, please, go back and read Howard's point on the 28th 08:01 a.m.

To take this a little further (at the risk of endless repetition on other threads) English is a remarkably elastic language constantly evolving.

Many many words in the dictionary have multiple definitions/meanings.

Surely 'folk' as a word has evolved into multiple definitions in different contexts. You are banging your head against a brick wall if you can't accept that for 'THE FOLK' the word 'folk' has a much wider meaning than what 1954 said.

As a researcher and writer I mostly use the 1954 definition, but then I'm not writing for the man in the street!